t LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. $ 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. \ 




GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 



[From a manuscript copy, in vellum, of the " Canterbury Tales," adorned 
with marginal paintings, in the possession of the Marquis of Stafford.] 



HOME PICTURES 



*jt/i..a^' 



OF 



ENGLISH POETS, 



FOE 



FIRESIDE AND SCHOOL-ROOM. 




xm*-. 



NEW YOKE: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

90, 92 & 94 GRAND STREET. 
1869. 




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

D. APPLETON <& CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Southern District of New York. 



PEE FACE. 



The writer, in the following Sketches of our best 
English Poets, from old Father Chancer to the short- 
lived Burns, has attempted to interest the young stu- 
dent by making of each life a story as well as a lesson. 

It has been her aim to introduce these men of 
genius familiarly to her readers, that they may shake 
hands as good friends through the medium of a book. 

The style is intentionally informal and colloquial, 

in order to attract those who might neglect elaborate 

works on English Literature, and to lead them to a 

more thorough and extensive exploration in the same 

direction. 

K A. S. 

Hanover, N. H., September 10, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

CHAUCER 7 

SPENSER SO 

SHAKESPEARE . . .45 

MILTON 64 

DRYDEN 85 

ADDISON . . 104 

SWIFT . . .121 

POPE 139 

YOUNG 155 

THOMSON 162 

GRAY * .178 

JOHNSON 192 

GOLDSMITH . .218 

COWPER 247 

BURNS 267 




OHAUOEE. 



" Dan Chancer, well of English undefyled, 
On Fame's eternal bead-roll worthy to be fyled." 

Shining brightly in the twilight period of English 
literature, appears the name of Geoffrey Chaucer. - He 
is often called Dan Chaucer, as in the quotation"; a title 
of respect, originally " Don " * or Lord. Southey says, 
that the line of English poets begins with him, as that 
of English kings with William the Conqueror. He is 
styled the " Father of English poetry ; " " the loadstar of 
the language," and extolled as 

11 The morning-star of song, who made 
His music heard below ; 

* From the Latin Dominus. 



b HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill 

The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
With sounds that echo still." 

The poets before him are almost forgotten, and you 
could not even read their rhymes without some Study ; so 
much does the old English differ from our own. A short 
lyric from an unknown poet of the thirteenth century 
will show the state of the English language at that time. 
The theme is the uncertainty of life : 

" Winter wakeneth all my care ; 
Now these leaves waxeth bare. 
Oft I sigh and mourn sare, 
When it cometh in my thought. 
Of this world's joy, how it goth all to nought. 
Now it is and now it n'is (is not). 
All so it ne'er n'were I wis ; 
That many men saith sooth it is, 
All go'th but Godes will. 
All we shall die, though us like ill. 
All that grain me groweth green, 
Now it falloweth nil by-dene (fadeth presently), 
Jesu help that it be seen, 
And shield us from hell ; 
For I n'ot (know not) whither I shall, 
Ne how long here dwell." 

Those early days in " Merrie England " were the days 
of feudalism, which, you know, is the exact reverse of re- 
publicanism, the government of which we are now so 
proud. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the 
height of the feudal system, and the commencement of 
its decline. In our country the basis of honor and power 
is the people, but in theirs it was the king, from whom 
all classes took their power, and on whom they were de- 
pendent, while the common people were mere slaves, to 
do his bidding. 



CHAUCER. 9 

Society was divided into nobles and serfs. Under the 
great barons were lesser barons, under these the yeomen, 
each owing military service to the class above them. The 
barons lived in strong castles, in plenty and wealth ; the 
poor in miserable hovels, often nothing but mud cottages, 
with rotten thatches. Very few houses had windows, only 
loopholes to look from, and chimneys were rare. The fire 
was usually placed in an iron grate in the centre of the 
room, the smoke escaping at the open, blackened roof. At 
meals, the family were seated before the table was laid, 
with hands carefully washed, as forks were unknown, and 
fingers had to be freely used. Travelling minstrels would 
often come in during the meal, and were well supplied 
with food and wine, for the songs they sung and the stories 
they told. They danced as well as sung, and were ex- 
perts in the art of legerdemain ; always welcome at the 
marriage feast, or other gay festivals. 

" Merry it is in halle to here the harpe, 
. The minstrelles synge, the jogelours carpe." 
f 

They often received handsome and costly gifts ; for 
instance, a certain earl gave to his host's minstrels, 
" gowns of cloth of gold, furred with ermyne, valued at 
200 franks." Masques and brilliant pageants, tourna- 
ments, archery, hunting, and wrestling, were the amuse- 
ments of the age. 

A hawk was the symbol of nobility. Enormous 
prices were paid for these birds, and men of rank were 
seldom seen without one or more of them, taking them 

o 

even to war and to church. They bequeathed their favor- 
ite falcon, in their wills, to their dearest friend, <&nd a 
pathetic tale is told of a young nobleman, who, after sacri- 
ficing every thing in pursuit of a haughty dame, resolved 
to dress his hawk for her dinner, as the last and greatest 



10 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

proof of his love. Chaucer's poems are full of allusions 
to the art of hawking ; one of them, indeed, " The Parlia- 
ment of Love" is quite devoted to that subject. 

Much cannot be said for the morality of the age. The 
monks were too often corrupt and gluttonous hypocrites ; 
the barons spent much of their time in feasting and fight- 
ing; and the poor, with their rough garments seldom 
changed by night or day, grew sullen and reckless. 

A writer of those times describes a poor ploughman 
and his half-starved family. The man is in rags from 
head to foot ; " his ton (toes) toteden (peeped) out," and 
his oxen are so starved that men might " reckon each a rib." 

Here is a touching picture, as we know the distress 
was real: 

" His wife walked him with 
With a long goad 
In a cutted coat, 
Cutted full high ; 
Wrapped in a winnow sheet 

To wearen her from weathers. 
Barefoot on the bare ice, 
That the blood followed. 
And at the land's end layeth 

A little crumb bowl. 
And thereon lay a little child 
Lapped in clouts ; 
And twins of two years' old, 

Upon another side. 
And all they sungen one song 
That sorrow was to hear ; — 
They crieden all one cry, 

A careful * note. 
The simple man sighed sore 
And said, " Children be still." 

Chaucer, though a close student of books (or rather 
manuscripts written on parchment, for books were then 

* Full of care. 



CHATTCEE. 11 

almost unknown), was a great lover of nature, as may 
easily be seen from his writings. Early poetry, like ven- 
ison, has a flavor of the wild-woods ; its very words are 
redolent of nature. 

Bacon says, that what we call antiquity, was really 
the youth of the world, and Chaucer's poetry seems to 
breathe of a time when humanity was younger and more 
joyous-hearted than it now is. " The first great poet of 
any country has this advantage, that he converses with 
Nature directly, without an interpreter, and his utterances 
are not so much the echo of hers as in very deed her 
living voice ; carrying in them a spirit as original and 
divine, as the music of her running brooks, or of her 
breezes among the leaves." For this reason Chaucer's 
rhymes are still the freshest and greenest in our language, 
disfigured as they are by the coarseness of the times and 
obsolete spelling. 

Chaucer had a child's love for birds. Some of his best 
lines are descriptions of them and their sweet songs, and 
he could not bear to see them imprisoned. He says : 

" Where birds are fed in cages, 
Though you should day and night tend them like pages, 
And strew the bird's room fair and soft as silk, 
And give him sugar, honey, bread, and milk ; 
Yet had the bird, by twenty thousand-fold, 
Rather be in a forest, wild* and cold ; 
And right anon let but his door be up, 
And with his feet he spurneth down his cup, 
And to the woods will hie, and feed on worms. 
In that new college keepeth he his terms, 
And learneth love of his own proper kind — 
No gentleness of home his heart may bind." 

Like a child, too, he mourned over the decline of the 
charming illusions that, in his early days, had such power 
in the land. But the elf-haunted glades were so searched 
by the stern limitour (or friar licensed to beg within cer- 



12 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

tain limits) that all the fairies were driven away, and 
danced no more at midnight on the moonlit greensward. 
There is something so comically pathetic in Chaucer's 
way of telling of this change, that I must give you his own 
words : 

u In olde dayes of the King Artour, 
All was this lond ful filled of faerie ; 
The elf-queen, with her jolly compaynie, 
Danced ful oft in many a grene mede, 
But now can no man see non elves mo, 
For the great charitee and prayeres 
Of limitoures, and other holy freres, 
That searchen every land and every streme. 
This maketh that there ben no faeries, 
For ther as wont to walken as an elf, 
Ther walketh now the limitour himself," 

He lived in stirring times and an illustrious age, the 
brightest ornament of the reigns of Edward III. and 
Richard II., the one the ablest, and the other, perhaps, the 
weakest of all the English sovereigns. 

Wicexiffe, the first translator of the whole English 
Bible, was his contemporary, and I am sure a few words in 
regard to this great teacher and reformer will not be 
thought a useless digression. 

The Bible was to the mass of the people a sealed book, 
locked up in a dead and foreign tongue. Wickliife com- 
menced his " Apology " for his noble work in this way : 
" Oh Lord God ! sithin at the beginning of faith so 
many men translated into Latin, and to great profit of 
Latin men, let one simple creature of God translate into 
English for profit of Englishmen." Of course, the 
priests raged at this innovation, and abused him without 
mercy. They complained that " the Gospel is made vul- 
gar, and laid more open to the laity, and even to women 
who could read, than it used to be to the most learned of 
the clergy and those of the best understanding. And so 



CHAUCER. 13 

the Gospel jewel or evangelical pearl is thrown about and 
trodden under foot of swine." They openly rejoiced at his 
death, which occurred in 1384, and the far-famed Council 
of Constance, which also condemned Huss and Jerome to 
the stake, determined, thirty years later, to wreak their 
vengeance on his bones, which by their decree were taken 
up and burned, and the ashes thrown into the waters of a 
brook which runs into the Avon. A poet of a later day 
thus alludes to this sacrilege : 

" The Avon to the Severn runs, 
The Severn to the sea, 
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad 
Wide as those waters be." 

" Quaint old Thomas Fuller " also remarks that " the 
ashes of "Wickliffe are the emblems of his doctrine, which 
are now dispersed all the world over." 

From this sturdy, unconquerable, outspoken, great- 
hearted reformer, our poet learned not only lessons of 
wisdom, but those religious doctrines which he ever after 
supported, though a Catholic by birth and education. 
There is much uncertainty about his early life, but we 
have good reason to believe that his father was a wealthy 
London merchant, and that his childhood was spent in that 
city. In the " Testament of Love," his longest prose 
work, we find these words : " Also the citye of London, 
that is to me so dere and swete, in which I was forth 
growen, and more kindly love have I to that place than 
to any other in yerth." He studied at Cambridge, and 
perhaps at Oxford also. 

His first poem, "The Court of Love," was written 
while at college, when only eighteen. An entry in some 
old register of the Inns of Court, stating that " Geoffrey 
Chaucer was fined two shillings for beating a Franciscane 
friar in Fleet Street," is the only recorded event of his 
supposed law studies in the Inner Temple. 



14 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

In some way he obtained the patronage of John of 
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and so well played the cour- 
tier's part, as to gain honor, preferment, position, and, 
above all, after eight years of faithful courtship, the hand 
of one of Queen Philippa's maids of honor, sister-in-law to 
the duke. 

In 1372, he was sent on an important mission to Genoa, 
and during this embassy visited Petrarch in Northern 
# Italy, who told him the story of " Patient Griselda," which 
he afterward wove into the " Canterbury Tales." 

" I woll tell a tale which that I 
Learned at Padowe of a worthy clerk, 
As preved by his wordes and his werk ; 
He is now dead and nailed in his chest ; 
I pray to God so yeve his soul rest. 
Francis Petrarch, the laureat poet, 
Highte this clerk, whose rhethoricke sweet 
Enlumined all Itaille of poetrie." 

How pleasant, in this prosy, matter-of-fact age, to look 
back to the fourteenth century, and picture the meeting 
of those master-minds ! 

Chaucer's path was now onward and upward, bright- 
ened by frequent tokens of royal favor ; not empty praise 
merely, but gold and silver, were generously given to the 
court poet by the brave old king. His cup was full of 
blessings, but, like other mortals, he was destined to trials 
and disappointment. 

When King Edward died, in 1377, Chaucer lost his 
best friend. For several years all went well ; but at last 
Richard quarrelled with the Duke of Lancaster, and Chau- 
cer nobly sided with his patron. He was accused of join- 
ing in a riot in London, and was obliged to flee to the Con- 
tinent. There he remained nearly two years, with his 
wife and children, "becoming at last almost penniless, 
through generosity to his fellow-exiles, and the failure of 
supplies from home, where his agents had treacherously 



CHAUCER. , 15 

appropriated his rents." Perhaps it was at this time he 
addressed these verses to his purse : 

" TO MY PURSE. 

" To you, my purse, and to none other wight, 
Complain I, for ye be my lady dere ; 
I am sorry now that ye be light, 
For certes, now ye make me heavy chere : 
Me were as lefe be laid upon a bere, 
For which unto your mercy thus I crie, 
Be heavy again, or else mote I die. 

" Now vouchsafe this day, or it be night 
That I of you the blissful sound may here, 
Or see your color like the sunne bright ; 
That of yellownesse had never peere, 
Te are my life, ye be my herte's stere, 
I ween of comfort and good companie, 
Be heavy again, or else mote I die. 

u Now purse, thou art to me my live's light 
And saviour, as downe in this world here ; 
Out of this town helpe me by your might ; 
Sith that you will not be my treasure, 
For I am slave as nere as any frere, 
But I pray unto your curtesie, 
Be heavy again, or else mote I die." 

Literature had been confined to the monasteries, but 
Chaucer was a good-humored man of the world, a travel- 
ler, courtier, and scholar, and brought it to the market. 
The best part of his life was given to the translation of 
poems from the French and Italian, and it was not until 
the age of sixty that he commenced the " Canterbury- 
Tales," to which he owes his fame. They were never fin- 
ished, but the story-tellers are talking yet, and their voices, 
echoing from the past, tell us how the Englishman of the 
fourteenth century spoke, dressed, and acted, giving, with 
more fidelity than any painting, the follies, vices, and cus- 
toms of the age. 



16 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

u Old England's fathers live in Chaucer's lay- 
As if they ne'er had died. He grouped and drew 
Their likeness with a spirit of life so gay, 
That still they live and breathe in fancy's view, 
Fresh beings, fraught with time's imperishable hue." 

Chaucer's plan was to describe in narrative poetry the 
men and manners of his day. This he does in his rugged 
tongue, with much quiet humor and keen satire, marred 
at times by the coarseness then too common. 

Lowell says of him : " His narrative flows on like one 
of our inland rivers, sometimes hastening a little in its 
eddies, seeming to run sunshine — sometimes gliding 
smoothly, while here and there a beautiful, quiet thought, 
a pure feeling, a golden-hearted verse, opens as quietly as 
a water-lily, and makes no ripple." 

He represents a company of pilgrims on a visit to the 
shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. They all hap- 
pen to lodge at the Tabard Inn, at Southwark — strangers 
to each other, thirty-two in number, if we include the 
story-teller himself, and the jolly, corpulent host of the 
Tabard, Harry Bailey, who, having often travelled the 
road before, proposes to go with them as guide, and at the 
same time suggests that the journey would seem less tedious 
if each were to tell a story as they ride — a supper to be 
given on their return to the one who had been most enter- 
taining. 

" In Southwark, at the Tabard as I lay, 
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage 
To Canterbury, with full devout corage, 
At night was come into that hostelrie, 
Wei nyne and twenty in a compayne 
Of sondry folks, by aventure i falle 
In felawschipe, and pilgrims were they alle, 
That toward Canterbury wolden ryde." 

This simple plot is the string upon which these pleas- 
ant stories are strung, and the number of personages in 



CHAUCER. 17 

this motley but attractive cavalcade gave the poet a fine 
opportunity to describe the various classes of society. 
Every member of the party has a separate and individual 
interest, each character is a perfect picture in itself, each 
traveller represents a class, and in the entire company the 
whole society of that age stands again before us just as it 
was. 

The Tabard Inn, under the name of Talbot, is still 
pointed out in London, opposite Spurgeon's Tabernacle, 
as the very place where these pilgrims met five hundred 
years ago. But this seems rather improbable, as I write 
it, so I will add " they say," and a hope that you and I may 
some day see that venerable " hostelrie." 

As examples of our poet's humor, satire, and power, 
we have here a lawyer described as the busiest of mortals, 
with the sly addition, 

" And yet he seemed besier than he was ; " 

and, after an imposing list of the doctor's medical authori- 
ties, a droll line tells us that his study was but " litel on 
the Bible." But his severest satire is reserved for the monks 
and priests, with whom he is no more in love than when he 
beat the friar in Fleet Street, and their hypocrisy and 
lack of spirituality are described with zest. 

He tells us of a " gentil pardonere " or seller of indul- 
gences, who, brimful of pardons, came from Rome all hot, 
who carried in his wallet the Virgin Mary's veil, and a 
part of the sail of St. Peter's ship, and in a glass he* had 
" pigg es bones " for relics, and with these he made more 
money in a day than the poor parson did in two months. 

His description of the parson, a simple man of God, 
is considered one of the best : 

11 A good man there was of religion, 
That was a poore parson of a town, 
But rich he was of holy thought and werk ; 



18 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

He was also a learned man, a clerk, 
That Christe's gospel truly woulde preach : 
His parishens devoutly would he teach. 
Benign he was and wonder diligent, 
And in adversity full patient. 
Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder, 
But he ne left nought, for no rain nor thunder, 
In sickness and in mischief to visit 
The farthest in his parish much and lite, 
Upon his feet, and in his hands a staff; 
This noble ensample to his sheep he yaf, 
That first he wrought and afterward he taught. 
To drawen folk to heaven with fairness, 
By good ensample, was his business ; 
But it were any person obstinate, 
"What so he were of high or low estate, 
Him would he snibben sharply for the nones ; 
A better priest I trow that no where none is. 
He waited after no pomp or reverence ; 
He maked him no spiced conscience ; 
But Christe's lore and his apostles twelve 
He taught, but first he followed it himselve." 

I would like to give you the whole description of the 
pretty Prioresse — 

" That of her smiling was full simple and coy." 

" Full well she sang the service divine, 
Entuned in her nose full sweetly. 

At meate was she well y-taught withal, 
She let no morsel from her lippes fall. 

But for to speaken of her conscience, 
She was so charitable and pitous, 
She would weep, if that she saw a mouse 
Caught in a trap, if it were dead or bled ; 
Of smale hownds, had she that she fed 
With wasted flesh and milk and wastel bread, 
But sore wept she if one of them were dead ; 
Or if men smote it with a yerde smart, 
And all was conscience and tender heart" 



CHAUCER. 19 

Though she had renounced the world and its pleasures, 
she had not given up all womanly love for ornaments, for 

" Of smale corall about hire arm she bare 
A pair of bedes gauded all with grene, 
And thereon hung a broche of gold ful shene, 
On whiche was first y-written a crowned A, 
And after, Amor vincit omnia.' ' 

How different is his description of the wife of Bath, 
a plain, vulgar, full-faced, well-dressed dame, who rode 
her horse like a man ; had spurs on her feet, and a hat on 
her head as "broad as a buckler : " 

11 In all the parish, wif ne was there none 
That to the offring bifore hire shulde gon ; 
And if there did, certain so wroth was she 
That she was out of alle charite. 
Her coverchiefs (head-dress) weren ful fine of ground, 
I dorse swere they weyden a pound, 
That on the Sonday were upon hire- hede ; 
Her hosen weren of fine scarlet rede. 
Full straite iteyed, and shoon ful moist and newe ; 
Bold was hire face, and fayre, and red of hew. 
She was a worthy woman all hire live, 
Husbands at chirche dore, had she had five." 

But of course I do no justice to these mental photo- 
graphs by clipping here and there, and you will enjoy 
looking up these shrewd and skilful pictures. The original 
plan of Chaucer would have required at least sixty tales, 
with prologues, interludes, local descriptions, and side- 
scenes. Only twenty-four stories were completed ; these 
contain 17,000 lines, and his other works exceed this num- 
ber. It may give a better idea to mention that " Paradise 
Lost" contains but 10,575 lines, and the whole of Virgil 
but 12,497. The Tales are written both in prose and poetry, 
are both serious and comic, to suit the person from whom 
they came. " The Clerke's Tale " is perhaps the best of 
all, which Chaucer owned he had taken from Petrarch, and 



20 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Petrarch confessed that he had borrowed from Boccaccio, 
who remodelled it from some old legend. It deserves to be 
told in yet better language, by some poet of our own day. 

Dryden and Pope have modernized some parts of Chau- 
cer's great work, but not the best. The former says of him, 
"He is a perpetual fountain of good sense." Emerson 
accuses Chaucer of being a " huge borrower," using " poor 
Gower " (an author of that time) " as if he were only a 
brickkiln or stone quarry, out of which to build his 
house." This may be very true, but it is hard to criticise 
severely the genius who borrows indifferent material and 
makes it immortal. 

His Tales remained in manuscript form for seventy 
years, and were then published by Caxton, the first 
printer of England. 

In regard to the personal appearance of Chaucer him- 
self, but little is known. " His common dress consisted of 
red hose, horned shoes, and a loose frock of camlet reach- 
ing to the knee, with' wide sleeves, fastened at the wrist." 

A miniature introduced, as was the fashion of those 
times, into one of the most valuable manuscript copies of 
his works, gives him a pleasant, thoughtful, and somewhat 
abstracted countenance. As a young man, he was hand- 
some, elegant, and graceful, his mouth, especially noticed 
for its beauty of color and outline. But, toward the end 
of his life, he grew rather corpulent, and always walked 
with downcast face, as if absorbed in meditation. When 
called on in his turn to amuse the pilgrims by a story, he 
is rallied by honest Harry Bailey, who was not a slender 
man himself, on his obesity and studious air; and the 
amiability with which the poet receives these jokes, proves 
him a true gentleman as well as a fine writer. 

Listen for a moment to the burly landlord : 

"What roan art thou ? quod he, 
Thou lookest as thou woldest find a hare ; 



CHAUCER. 21 

For ever on the ground I see thee stare. 

Approach near, and loke merrily. 

Now ware you sires, and let this man have room, 

He in wast is shape as well as I. 

This were a popet in an arm to embrace 

For any woman and fair of face ; 

He seemeth elveisch by his countenance, 

For unto no wight doth he dalliance." 

Crowned with plenty and content, enjoying a quiet, 
happy old age, warmed once more by the sunshine of royal 
favor, Chaucer spent his last and best days writing his 
greatest work in a pleasant home at Woodstock, receiving 
a liberal pension and a pitcher of wine daily from the 
cellar of the king. 

He died in 1400, and was buried in "Westminster 
Abbey, in what is now called the " Poet's Corner." It is 
said that he repeated in his last moments the " Balade 
made by Geoffrey Chaucer upon his dethe bed, lying in his 
great anguisse." Here is a portion of it, with the modern 
spelling : 

"Fly from the crowd, and be to virtue true, 

Content with what thou hast though it be small ; 
To hoard brings hate, nor lofty thoughts pursue,. 

He who climbs high endangers many a fall. 
Envy's a shade that ever waits on fame, 

And oft the sun that rises it will hide ; 
Trace not in life a vast expansive scheme, 

But be thy wishes to thy state allied. 
Be mild to others, to thyself severe, 

So truth shall shield thee or from want or fear." 

Chaucer was the type of his age, a connecting link 
between the days of chivalry and the great Reformation, 
uniting in his character the knight and the Christian. 

The first poet, like the snow-drop, the harbinger of 
spring, attracts all eyes and wins all hearts. Those who 
followed Chaucer admired and imitated him. They called 
his words " the gold dew-drops of speech," and himself 



22 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" superlative in eloquence," " the chief poet of Britain," 
" the first finder of our fair language." 
Wordsworth speaks of 

" That noble Chaucer, in those former times, 
Who first enriched our English with his rhymes ; 
And was the first of ours that ever broke 
Into the Muses' treasures, and first spoke 
In mighty numbers, delving in the mine 
Of perfect knowledge." 

He first introduced the heroic metre into our language, 
and his vigorous Anglo-Saxon was inlaid with such a 
number of Norman-French words, that contemporaries 
complained that he imported a " wagon-load of foreign 
words." A French accent is often necessary to make the 
rhythm perfect. 

His principal works, besides the " Canterbury Tales," 
are " The Flower and the Leaf," " Troilus and Creseide," 
" Romaunt of the Rose," and " The House of Fame." 
Pope, in his " Temple of Fame," has imitated the last 
poem to some extent. 

His poetry exhibits a rare combination of opposite 
excellences — " the sportive fancy, painting and gilding 
every thing with the keen, observant, matter-of-fact spirit, 
that looks through whatever it glances at ; the soaring 
and creative imagination,. with the homely sagacity and 
healthy relish for all the realities of things ; the unrivalled 
tenderness and pathos, with the quaintest humor and the 
most exuberant merriment ; the wisdom at once and the 
wit ; the all that is best, in short, both in poetry and 
prose at the same time." 

Henry Reed says : " You look at him in his gay mood, 
and it is so genial that that seems to be his very nature, 
an overflowing comic power, or rather that power touched 
with thoughtfulness and tenderness — i humor ' in its 
finest estate. And then you turn to another phase of his 



CHAUCER. 23 

genius, and with something of wonder, and more of de- 
light, you find it shining with a light as true and natural 
and beautiful into the deeper places of the human soul — 
its woes, its anguish, and its strength of suffering and of 
heroism. In this, the harmonious union of true tragic and 
comic powers, Chaucer and Shakespeare stand alone in 
our literature ; it places them above all the other great 
poets of our language." 

Most persons have the idea that Chaucer was a remark-" 
able poet for the age in which he lived, but that now " he 
is dead and buried in a literary as well as a literal sense," 
regarding his works as relics of an almost barbarous age. 
But those who are willing to master the difficulties of 
his style will be amply rewarded. " It will conduct you," 
to use the beautiful words of Milton, " to a hill-side ; 
laborious, indeed, at the first ascent, but else so smooth, 
so green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds 
on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more 
charming." 

Leigh Hunt has given us the story in exquisite prose of 
the " glorious, sainted Griselda." He says : " The whole 
heart of Christendom has embraced her. She has passed 
into a proverb ; ladies of quality have called their children 
after her, the name surviving (we believe) among them to 
this day, in spite of its griesly sound ; and we defy the 
manliest man of any feeling to read it in Chaucer's own 
consecutive stanzas (whatever he may do here) without 
feeling his eyes moisten." And then follows his ver- 
sion: 

" At Saluzzo, in Piedmont, under the Alps — 

1 Down at the root of Yesulus the cold ' — 

there reigned a feudal lord, a marquis, who was beloved 
by his people, but too much given to his amusement, and 
an enemy of marriage ; which alarmed them, lest he 

2 



24 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

should die childless, and leave his inheritance in the hands 
of strangers. They, therefore, at last sent him a deputa- 
tion which addressed him on the subject ; and he agreed 
to take a wife, on condition that they should respect his 
choice wheresoever it might fall. 

" Now, among the poorest of the marquis's people — 

1 There dwelt a man 
Which that was holden poorest of them all : 
But highe God sometime senden can 
His grace unto a little ox's stall ; 
Janicola, men of that thorp him call ; 
A daughter had he fair enough to sight, 
And Grisildis this younge maiden night.' 

Tender of age was ' Grisildis ' or ( Grisilda ' (for the poet 
calls her both) ; but she was a maiden of a thoughtful 
and steady nature, and as excellent a daughter as could 
be, thinking of nothing but her sheep, her spinning, and 
her ' old poor father,' whom she supported by her labor, 
and waited upon with the greatest duty and obedience. 

* Upon Griseld', this poore creature, 
Full often sith this marquis set his eye, 
As he on hunting rode peraventure ; 
And, when it fell that he might her espy, 
He not with wanton looking of folly 
His eyen cast on her, but in sad wise 
Upon her cheer he would him oft avise.' 

" The marquis announced to his people that he had 
chosen a wife, and the wedding-day arrived : but nobody 
saw the lady ; at which there was great wonder. Clothes 
and jewels were prepared, and the feast too ; and the mar- 
quis, with a great retinue, and accompanied by music, took 
his way to the village where Gri&elda lived. 

" Griselda had heard of his coming, and said to her- 
self, that she would get her work done faster than usual, on 
purpose to stand at the door, like other maidens, and see 



CHAUCER. 25 

*the sight; but, just as she was going to look out, she 
heard the marquis call her ; and she set down a water-pot 
she had in her hand, and knelt down before him with her 
usual steady countenance. 

" The marquis asked for her father ; and, going in-doors 
to him, took him by the hand, and said, with many cour- 
teous words and leave-asking, that he had come to mar- 
ry his daughter. The poor man turned red, and stood 
abashed and quaking, but begged his lord to do as seemed 
good to him ; and then the marquis asked Griselda if she 
would have him, and vow to obey him in all things, be 
they what they might ; and she answered trembling, but 
in like manner ; and he led her forth, and presented her 
to the people as his wife. 

" The ladies, now Griselda' s attendants, took off her 
old peasant's clothes, not much pleased to handle them, 
and dressed her anew in fine clothes, so that the people 
hardly knew her again for her beauty. 

1 Her haires have they combed that lay untressed 
Full rudely, and with their fingers small 
A coroune on her head they have ydressed, 
And set her full of nouches * great and small. 
Thus Walter lowly, nay but royally, 
Wedded with fortunate honesty ; ' 

and Griselda behaved so well and discreetly, and behaved 
so kindly to every one, making up disputes, and speaking 
such gentle and sensible words — 

* And coulde so the people's heart embrace, 
TJiat each her lovHh that looketh on her face? 

" In due time the marchioness had a daughter, and the 
marquis had always treated his consort well, and behaved 
like a man of sense and reflection ; but now he informed 
her that his people were dissatisfied at his having raised 

* Nouches— nuts ?— "buttons in that shape made of gold or jewelry. f 



26 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

her to be his wife ; and, reminding her of her vow to obey 
him in all things, told her that she must agree to let him 
do with the little child whatsoever he pleased*. Griselda 
kept her vow to the letter, not even changing counte- 
nance ; and shortly afterward an ill-looking fellow came, 
and took the child from her, intimating that he was to kill 
it. Griselda asked permission to kiss her child ere it died ; 
and she took it in her bosom, and blessed and kissed it 
with a sad face, and prayed the man to bury its ' little 
body ' in some place where the birds and beasts could not 
get it. But the man said nothing. He took the child, 
and went his way ; and the marquis bade him carry it to 
the Countess of Pa via, his sister, with directions to bring 
it up in secret. 

" Griselda lived on, behaving like an excellent wife ; and 
four years afterward she had another child, a son, which 
the marquis demanded of her, as he had done the daughter, 
laying his injunctions on dier at the same .time to be 
patient. Griselda said she would ; adding — as a proof, 
nevertheless, what bitter feelings she had to control — 

' I have not had no part of children twain ; 
But first, sickness ; and after, woe and pain.' 

The same c ugly sergeant' now came again, and took 
away the second child, carrying it like the former to 
Bologna ; and twelve years after, to the astonishment and 
indignation of the poet, and the people too, but making 
no alteration whatsoever in the obedience of the wife, the 
marquis informs her, that his subjects are dissatisfied at 
his having her for a wife at all, and that he had got a dis- 
pensation from the pope to marry another, for whom she 
must make way, and be divorced, and return home ; add- 
ing, insultingly, that she might take back with her the 
dowry which she brought him. Woefully, but ever 
patiently, does Griselda consent ; not, however, without a 
tendex exclamation at the difference between her marriage- 



CHArCEB. 27 

day and this : and as she receives the instruction about 
the dowry as a hint that she is to give up her fine clothes, 
and resume her old ones, which she says it would be im- 
possible to find, she makes him an exquisite prayer and 
remonstrance, in which she says : 

' Let me not like a worm go by the way. 
Remember you, mine owen lord so dear, 
I was your wife, though I unworthy were.' 

" She leaves her beautiful home in the simplest garb 
possible, without one word of complaint for her tyran- 
nical husband, who is thus testing her love. 

"The people follow her weeping and wailing; but she 
went ever as usual, with staid eyes, nor all the while did 
she speak a word. As to her poor father, he cursed the 
day he was born. And so with her fathei, for a space, 
dwelt ' this flower of wifely patience ; ' nor .showed any 
sense of offence, nor remembrance of .her high estate. 

" At length arrives news of the coming of the new 
marchioness, with, such array of pomp as had never been 
seen in all Lombardy ; and the marquis, who has, in the 
mean time, sent to Bologna for his son and daughter, once 
more desires Griselda to come to him, and tells her that 
as he has not women enough in his household to wait upon 
his new wife, and set every thing in order for her, he must 
request her to do it ; which she does with all ready obedi- 
ence, and then goes forth with the rest to meet the new 
lady. At dinner, the marquis again calls her, and asks 
her what she thinks of his . choice. She commends it 
heartily, and prays God to give him prosperity; only 
adding, that she hopes he will not try the nature of so 
young a creature as he tried hers, since she has been 
brought up more tenderly, and perhaps could not bear it. 

1 And when this TTalter saw her patience, 
Her gladde cheer, and no malice at all, 



28 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

And he so often had her done offence, 
And she aye sad * and constant as a wall, 
Continuing aye her innocence over all, 
This sturdy marquis 'gan his hearte dress 
To rue upon her wifely stedfastness.' 

He gathers her in his arms, and kisses her ; but she takes 
no heed of it, out of astonishment, nor hears any thing 
he says : upon which he exclaims, that, as sure as Christ 
died for him, she is his wife, and he will have no other, 
nor ever had ; and with that he introduces his supposed 
bride to her as her own daughter, with his son by her 
side ; and Griselda, overcome at last, faints away. 

* When she this heard, aswoone down she falleth 
For piteous joy ; and, after her swooning, 
She both her younge children to her calleth, 
And in her armes, piteously weeping, 
Embraceth them, and tenderly kissing 
Fall like a mother with her salte tears 
She bathed both their visage and their hairs. 

1 Oh ! such a piteous thing it was to see 
Her swooning, and her humble voi.ce to hear ! 

" Grand mercy / Lord, God thank it you (quoth she), 
That ye have saved me my children dear : 
Now reck f I never to be dead right here, 
Since I stand in your love and in your grace, 
No force of death, \ nor when my spirit pace. 

" tender, dear, younge children mine ! 
Your woful mother weened steadfastly, 
That cruel houndes or some foul vermin 
Had eaten you : but God of his mercy 
And your benigne father, tenderly 
Hath done you keep ; " and in that same stound 
All suddenly she swapped adown to ground. 

1 And in her swoon so sadly holdeth she 
Her children two when she ''gan them embrace, 

* Sad ; composed in manner ; unaltered. t Beck ; care. 

% No force of death; no matter for death. 



CHAUCER. 



29 



That with great sleight and great difficulty 
The children from her arm they ^gan arrace,* 
Oh ! many a tear on many a piteous face 
Down ran of them that stooden her beside ; 
Unnethe abouten her might they abide" 

That is, they could scarcely remain to look at her, or stand 
still. 

" And so, with feasting and joy, ends this divine 
cruel story of Patient Griselda ; the happiness of which 
is superior to the pain, not only because it ends so well, 
but because there is ever present in it, like that of a saint 
in a picture, the sweet, sad face of the fortitude of 
woman." 

*Arrace (French, arraclier); "pluck.'" 




THE TABARD INN. 




SPE-tfSEK. 



" That gentle bard, 
Chosen "by the Muses for their page of state, 
Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven, 
With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft face." 

Aftee the " Morning-Star " came a long, dark night, 
instead of the bright dawn, and for more than one hundred 
and fifty years no great poet appeared. 

With Chaucer, our literature and language had made 
a "burst" which they were not able to maintain. He has, 
by Warton, been well compared to some warm, bright 
day in the very early spring, which seems to say that the 
winter is over and gone. But its promise is deceitful ; the 
full bursting and blossoming are yet far off : 

" Old Chaucer, like the morning-star, 
To us discovers day from far ; 
His light those mists and clouds dissolved, 
Which our dark nation long involved ; 



SPENSES. 31 

But he, descending to the shades, 
Darkness again the age invades." 

It was, indeed, a dark and stormy period, an age of 
change and revolution, without progress, a desert-tract of 
time, a blank in our literary history. No form of govern- 
ment, no creed was safe ; life and property were nowhere 
protected. Yet England was in a better condition than 
any other country in this respect. 

How could men improve in such dreadful days ? the 
crown claimed by rival kings, the people divided into 
factions, causing that civil war 

" Which sent, between. the red rose and the white, 
A thousand souls to death and deadly night ! " 

How could men be merry or wise, when the bells in the 
church-steeples were not heard for the sound of drums 
and trumpets, and their voices were daily hushed by 
battle-cries and the crackling of fagots? for the best men 
of the day were burned for heresy. 

But at last there came a blessed change. The dark 
ages, with all their gloom and horror, passed away, and 
the dawn came on. Henry VII. ascended the throne in 
1485, and from that time the people began to enjoy peace 
and prosperity. 

Spenser now appeared, to clasp hands with Chaucer 
over the black abyss that parted them, uniting the four- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries by their sweet minstrelsy. 
That was the " golden age " of English literature, in the 
reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I. The great men 
of the world, its lights and teachers, come in clusters, and 
it is a well-known fact that a period of peculiar literary 
glory often succeeds a great national revolution. 

Lowell says " the world is only so many great men 
old," and we find so many men of genius and wisdom in 
this century, that the " ball or sphere " (as the geographies 



32 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

say) on which we are revolving so swiftly, yet so quietly, 
must have added several years to its life during those 
brilliant days when Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Hooker, 
Raleigh, Coke, and Sidney, were . busy with tongue and 
pen at court, the bar, and pulpit. 

Queen Bess was very fond of mythology ', which, of 
course, made it popular with her subjects ; and fables, fic- 
tion, strange concerts, and whimsical pageants, were the 
order of the day. When she passed through a town every 
display in her honor consulted this fancy. Mercury was 
her herald, Cupid her special attendant, and the Penates, 
or household gods, guarded her abode. "Tis even said 
that the cooks learned to b£ expert mythologists, and 
tempted her dainty palate with Ovid's wondrous metamor- 
phoses, done in confectionery, and immense loaves of 
plum-cake, on which were embossed, in elaborate icing, 
the destruction of Troy and other historical events. Hand- 
some pages, dressed like wood-nymphs, peeped from every 
bower to pay their obeisance to their virgin queen, and 
stupid footmen gambolled over the lawns, arrayed like 
satyrs. 

Though chivalry, as a political or social system, had 
ceased to exist at this period, though the joust and tourna- 
ment had lost their ancient splendor, yet the chivalrio 
character, " high thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy," 
still modified the manners of the higher classes. 

Such were the influences surrounding Edmund Spenser, 
the greatest poet between Chaucer and Shakespeare. He 
was born in London, in 1553, and speaks in one of his 
poems of 

11 Merry London, my most kindly nurse, 
That to me gave this life's first native source."' 

His parents were poor, though his father belonged to 
an old and honorable family, and he was obliged to enter 



SPENSEE. 33 

Cambridge as a " sizar," or charity student, the name de- 
rived from the size of the portion of bread and meat 
allowed to them. 

Chancer, you remember, did not develop his best 
powers until late in life, resembling 

" The aloe-flower, 
That blooms and blossoms at fourscore ; " 

but Spenser was a poet from his boyhood — " at home in 
the temple of the Muses, as the child Samuel was in the 
temple of God" — and, like the young prophet, he conse- 
crated his youth with religious exercises to letters and 
poesy. His intimate companion at Cambridge was Gabriel 
Harvey, who was his firm friend through life, exerting no 
small influence upon his fortunes. 

After taking his degree, he went to the north of Eng- 
land, whether to visit a friend or in the capacity of a tutor 
is not certain. He remained, at any rate, long enough to 
fail in love, and be rejected. 

Poets have often been compared to the nightingale, 
" singing with a thorn in her breast," and Spenser's fame, 
like so many others, .had its root in a deep sorrow. " A lady, 
whom he calls Rosalind, made a plaything of his heart, 
and, when tired of her sport, cast it from her. She little 
knew the worth of the jewel she had flung away. \ The 
sad, mechanic exercise of verse ' was balm to the wounded 
poet, who poured forth his tender soul in ' The Shepherd's 
Calendar.' " The name at once suggests scenes of rural 
life, where 

" Every shepherd tells his tale 
Under the hawthorn in the dale," 

or pipes his tender song, 

" In shadow of a green oak-tree," 
marking with red letters those days made bright by the 



34: HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

smiles of his true-love. But instead, we have a series of 
twelve long and rather prosy eclogues,* named after the 
twelve months of the year, written in such an antiquated 
style, that even then an explanation of the obsolete words 
followed each eclogue, and the shepherds, instead of sigh- 
ing over the charms of some Chloe or Phyllis, discuss, in a 
solemn way, the comparative merits of the Protestant and 
Romish Churches. 

He aimed at originality in the form of his work and 
its language, and the change from the beaten path was no 
improvement ; but, notwithstanding these faults, the " Cal- 
endar " was considered an extraordinary production, pla- 
cing Spenser among the highest poetical names of the day, 
and attracting for him the notice and patronage of the 
great. 

Through his friend Harvey he had been introduced to 
Sir Philip Sidney, and, under the grand old oaks in the 
beautiful park at Penhurst, the ancestral mansion of the 
Sidneys, Spenser is said to have completed this poem. 
He seemed to fear the criticism of envious or evil tongues, 
and dedicated it to his young patron, " Maister Philip 
Sidney — worthy of all titles, both of learning and chivalry " 
— under a feigned name : 

" Goe, little booke, thyself present, 
As childe whose parent is unkent, 
To him that is the president 
Of noblenesse and ehivalrie. 
And if that Envie bark at thee — 
As sure it will — for succour flee, 
Under the shadow of his wing.' 1 

A life of Spenser, however brief, would be incomplete 
without some notice of this accomplished friend, the em- 

* Pastoral poems. 



SPEX5ER. 35 

bodiment of so many graces and virtues, whom Elizabeth 
considered " the jewel of her court " — 

" The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eve, tongue, sword : 
The expectancy and rose of the fair state, 
The glass of fashion and the mould of form, 
The observed of all observers." 

Noble, brave, beautiful, good, learned, and generous, 
his life on .earth was far too short to show half- his worth, 
but he will ever be remembered with tenderness, pride, 
and regret. 

He was killed in a skirmish near Zutphen in 1586, while 
assisting Holland to throw off the Spanish yoke. Riding 
to the field of battle, he met an old general, the marshal of 
the camp, too lightly equipped for safety, and with his 
usual generosity insisted that he should take all his armor 
but his breastplate. His kindness killed him, for, unpro- 
tected himself, he soon received a fatal wound. Overcome 
with thirst from excessive bleeding, he called for drink. It 
was brought to him immediately; but the moment he 
was lifting it to his mouth, a poor soldier was carried by 
mortally wounded, who fixed his eyes eagerly upon it. 
Sidney, seeing this, instantly delivered it to him, with 
these memorable words, " Thy necessity is greater than 
mine." 

His last hours were spent in serious conversation upon 
the immortality of the soul, in sending kind wishes and 
keepsakes to his friends, and in the enjoyment of music. 
All England wore mourning for his death, and volumes 
of laments and elegies were poured forth in all languages. 
His whole life was a poem. Lord Brooke, his most inti- 
mate friend, said of him : " Though I lived with him, and 
knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than 
a man with such steadiness of mind, lovely and familiar 
gravity, as carried grace and reverence above greater 



36 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

years. His talk was ever of knowledge, and his very play 
tended to enrich the mind." 

Lord Buckhurst said, " He hath had as great love in 
this life and as many tears for his death, as ever any had." 

Cowper calls him " a warbler of poetic prose," and al- 
though he wrote a few pretty sonnets, his literary reputa- 
tion rests on his prose works ; the " Arcadia," a mixture 
of the heroic and pastoral romance, much admired at that 
time, and the " Defence of Poesy," a short treatise written 
in 1581, "to combat certain notions of the Elizabethan 
Puritans, who would fain, in their well-meant but mistaken 
^eal, have swept away the brightest blossoms of our lit- 
erature, along with pictures, statues, holidays, wedding- 
rings, and other pleasant things." 

I will give a short extract from the "Defence of 
Poesy : " 

" Now therein — (that is to say, the power of at once 
teaching and enticing to do well) — now therein, of all 
sciences — I speak still of human and according to human 
conceit — is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only 
show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, 
as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as 
if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the 
very first give you a cluster of grapes, that, full of that 
taste, you may long to pass further. He beginneth not 
with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent with 
interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness ; 
but he cometh to you with words set in delightful propor- 
tion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well- 
enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he 
cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from 
play, and old men from the chimney-corner ; and pretend- 
ing no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from 
wickedness to virtue, even as the child is often brought to 
take most wholesome things, by hiding them in such other 



SPENSER. 37 

as have a pleasant taste. For even those hard-hearted 
evil men, who think virtue a school name, and know no 
other good but indulgere genio, and therefore despise the 
austere admonitions of the philosopher, and feel not the 
inward reason they stand upon, yet will be content to be 
delighted; which is all the good-fellow poet seems to 
promise ; and so steal to see the form of goodness — which, 
seen, they cannot but love ere themselves be aware, as if 
they had taken a medicine of cherries. By these, there- 
fore, examples and reasons, I think it may be manifest that 
the poet, with that same hand of delight, doth draw the 
mind more effectually than any other art doth. And so a 
conclusion not unfitly ensues, that as virtue is the most 
excellent resting-place for all worldly learning to make an 
end of, so poetry, being the most familiar to teach it, and 
most princely to move toward it, in the most excellent 
work is the most excellent workman." 

But to return to Spenser. Sidney urged him to try 
something higher and better than this pastoral, but ten 
years passed before his great work, the " Faerie Queene," 
appeared. In 1582 he received a grant of land in Ireland 
from the queen, having previously spent two years there 
as secretary to Lord Grey ; but this was no great gift, as 
by the conditions he was obliged to live on it, which really 
banished him from England. Neither Queen Bess, nor 
her treasurer, Lord Burleigh, were ever very generous in 
their treatment of this poet, of whom they should have 
been so proud. Spenser had in some way given offence 
to Burleigh, and his best friends were of the opposite 
party, so his powerful influence was constantly against 
him. The queen once promised Spenser one hundred 
pounds for a poem, but when it was done Burleigh said 
" that sum was beyond all reason." " Give him reason 
then," said her majesty. But the ill-used bard received 
just nothing at all, as this stanza will show: 



38 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" It pleased your grace, upon a time, 
To grant me reason, for my ryme, 
But from that time until this season 
I've heard of neither ryme nor reason." 

He grew nervous and sad oyer this lack of kindness, 
and in one of his poems, called" Mother Hubbard's Tale," 
complains of the miseries of a courtier's life : 

• " Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride, 
What hell it is, in sueing long to bide ; 
To lose good days, that might be better spent ; 
To waste long nights in pensive discontent ; 
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow ; 
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow ; 
To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her Peeres ; 
To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeares ; 
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares ; 
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires ; 
To fawn, to crouche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, 
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone." 

Sir Walter Raleigh, who you remember was so polite 
or politic as to throw his rich plush cloak over a muddy- 
spot for the queen to pass over (by which he gained 
many good suits), visited Spenser at Kilcolman Castle, 
in the summer of 1589. Charmed by his rhymes, he per- 
suaded him to go with him to England, and soon the first 
three books of the " Faerie Queene " saw the light, the 
noblest allegorical poem in our language. Every one was 
delighted with what he modestly calls " a simple song." 
It is said that Spenser sent to Sidney the ninth canto of his 
poem. On reading a part of the allegory of despair, he 
ordered his steward to give the writer fifty pounds ; as he 
read further he doubled it ; and with another stanza he 
added another fifty pounds, and bade the messenger depart, 
lest his gifts should exhaust his treasury. The queen, to 
whom he had dedicated his work, rewarded him with an 
annuity of fifty pounds. 



SPENSER. 39 

I hardly know how to give a clear idea of the poem in a 
few words. It is a long fable, full cf hidden meaning, and 
the scene is laid in an imaginary land of chivalry. His pur- 
pose was "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in ver- 
tuous and gentle discipline." Each book of the poem is 
allegorical of some virtue, such as temperance, friendship, 
courtesy ; each defended by its own knight. TTe read of 
brave knights, captive ladies, guarded by dragons, besieged 
castles, witches, enchanters, and fairies. It is a " dark con- 
ceit," as the poet says ; and is not read with great interest 
now, as we do not care much for the perfect knights and 
fair damsels of so long ago. TTe do not read it with 
pleasure, because it is not natural, it is not real life, and 
he might have chosen a better theme. Spenser's imagina- 
tion was wonderful, and as a descriptive poet he has never 
been excelled. 

His style was vivid, earnest, clear, but without one 
bit of humor ; he failed, when he tried to be amusino*. 
" TTe look in vain in the ' Faerie Queen ' for flashes of wit 
and humor, for profound observations on life and manners, 
for the varied lights and shades of character, or the pun- 
gent flavor of satire. Xor has he that vivid energy of pas- 
sion which concentrates a world of meaning into a few 
burning words, and penetrates to the heart's core with 
the quick, irresistible energy of lightning. His poetry is a 
pure creation of the fancy. He transports us into an ideal 
world, in which shapes of perfect beauty and grace are con- 
trasted with forms of hideous or loathsome deformity. "We 
walk upon a new earth and beneath a new heaven, where 
the light that shines is a ' light that never was on sea or 
land.'" 

His genius was "pictorial." Campbell calls him the 
"Rubens " of English poetry. I will quote a little from 
this poem, that you may have a better idea of his style. 

In describing Una, a beautiful maiden, he says : 



4:0 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" Her angel's face, 
As the great eye of heaven shined bright 
And made sunshine in the shady place, 
Did never mortall eye, beholde such heavenly grace ? " 

He uses a fine metaphor to depict fear : 

" And troubled blood, through his pale face was seen, 
To come and goe with tidings from the heart, 
As it a running messenger had been." 

His description of repose is also beautiful : 

" Sleepe after toyle, port after stormy seas, 
Ease after pain, death after life, doth greatly please." 

Spenser sometimes describes a landscape which might 
adorn Paradise itself: 

" It was a chosen spot of fertile land, 
Emongst wide waves sett a little nest, 
As if it had by nature's cunning hand 
Been choycely pickt out from all the rest, 
And laid forth for ensample of the best. 
No dainty flowre or herb that growes on ground ; 
No arborett with painted blossomes drest, 
And smelling sweete, but there it might be found, 
To bud out fair and her sweet smels thro we all arounde ; 
No tree, whose branches did not bravely spring, 
No branch, whereon a fine bird did not bravely sit, 
No bird but did her shrill notes bravely sing, 
No song, but did contain a lovely ditt, 
Trees, branches, birds and songs, were framed fitt 
For to allure fraile mind to careless ease." 

Two stanzas on the ministry of angels are too beautiful 
to be omitted : 

" And is there care in heaven ? And is there love 
In heavenly spirits to these creatures bace, 
That may compassion of their evils move ? 
There is : else much more wretched were the case 
Of men then beasts : But ! th' exceeding grace 
Of Highest God that loves his creatures so, 



SPENSER. 41 

And all his workes with mercy doth embrace, 
That blessed Angels he sends to and fro, 
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe ! 

" How oft do they their silver bowers leave 

To come to succour us that succour want ! 

How oft do they with golden pineons cleave 

The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant, 

Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant ! 

They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward, 

And their bright squadrons round about us plant ; 

And all for love and nothing for reward : 
0, why should Hevenly God to men have such regard ! " 

Spenser was not merely a great poet, but a Christian 
philosopher, who never omitted, in glowing picture or 
fanciful allegory, the lessons of morality and holy living 
which, like the hidden meaning in our Saviour's parables, 
pervade and glorify the whole. 

" Great injustice is done to Spenser, when, bewildered 
with the mazes of his inexhaustible creation, or by the 
brightness of his exuberant fancy, we see in the i Faerie 
Queene ' nothing more than a wondrous fairy tale, or a 
gorgeous pageant of chivalry. Beyond all this, far within 
it, is an inner life, and that is breathed into it from the 
Bible. It is the great sacred poem of English literature." 

" I dare be known to think," said Milton (addressing 
the Parliament of England), " our sage and serious Spen- 
ser a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas." John Wes- 
ley, in giving directions for .the clerical studies of his 
Methodist disciples, advised them to combine with the 
study of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Testament the 
reading of the " Faerie Queene." And Keble, the poet of 
the " Christian Tear," described this poem as " a contin- 
ued, deliberate endeavor to enlist the restless intellect and 
chivalrous feeling of an inquiring and romantic age on 
the side of goodness and faith, of purity and justice." It 



42 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

is written in a peculiar versification, which Spenser first 
used, and which has since been styled the "Spenserian 
stanza." He added a ninth line to the " ottava rima," or 
eight-lined Italian stanza, a measure full of music and 
rhythm, in that flowing language, but very difficult to 
write with pleasant effect in English. 

But Spenser has wielded this complicated instrument 
with such consummate mastery and grace, that the rich, 
abundant melody almost oppresses the ear with its over- 
whelming sweetness. Like the soft undulation of a tropic 
sea, it bears us onward dreamily, with easy swell and falls, 
by wizard islands of sunshine and of rest, by bright phan- 
tom-peopled realms, and old enchanted cities. 

We will now return to his private life. He married at 
about the same period of life as Chaucer — forty-one or 
two. His wife was the fair " Elizabeth " to whom he ad- 
dressed one hundred sonnets, rather too artificial to be 
pleasing, and for whom his most melodious notes were 
sung in his " Epithalamion," " the sweetest marriage-song 
our language boasts." Let me give you her picture : 

" Loe ! where she comes along with portly pace, 
Like Phoebe, from her chamber of the East, 
Arysing forth to run her mighty race, 
Clad all in white that seems a virgin best, 
So well it her beseemes, that you might weene 
Some angell she had beene. 
Her long loose yellow locks, like golden wyre, 
Sprinckled with perles and perling flowers atweene, 
Doe like a golden mantle her attyre, 
And being crowned with a garland greene, 
Seeme like some mayden queene. 
Her modest eyes abashed to behold 
So many gazers as on her do stare 
Upon the lowly ground affixed are. 
Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold, 
But blush to hear her prayses sung so loud, 
So farre from being proud. 



SPENSER. 43 

Nathless doe ye still loud her prayses sing, 

That all the woods may answer, and your echo sing. 

Behold, whiles she before the altar stands, 

Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks, 

And blesseth her with his happy hands, 

How the red roses flush up in her cheeks, 

And the pure snows, with goodly vernieill staine 

Like crimson dyde in grayne ; 

That even the angels, which continually 

About the sacred altar doe remaine, 

Forget their service, and about her fly, 

Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fayre 

The more they on it stare. 

But her sad eyes still fastened on the ground, 

Are governed with goodly modesty, 

That suffers not one look to glaunce awry, 

Which may let in a little thought unsound. 

Why blush ye, Love, to give to me your hand ? 

The pledge" of all our band — 

Sing ye sweet angels, Alleluya sing.! 

That all the woods may answer and your echo ring ! " 

The next few years were full of happiness, in his Irish 
castle, now made bright by the love of wife and children. 
It was a beautiful home by the shaded banks of the river 
Mulla. " Soft woodland and savage hill, shadowy river- 
glade and rolling plough-land, were all there to gladden 
the poet's heart with their changeful beauty, and tinge his 
verse with their glowing colors." 

But alas ! how soon the dark cloufls of sorrow and 
death swept over this lovely scene ! In 1598 he was driven 
from his home by the Irish rebellion, and, his castle being 
burned by the mob, one of his children perished in the 
names. 

Crushed by grief and poverty, he died soon after in 
London at the early age of forty-five, on the 16th of Jan- 
uary, 1599. He was buried by the side of Chaucer, with 
great pomp, in Westminster Abbey. His pall was borne 



U 



HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 



by poets, and mournful elegies, with the pens that wrote 
them, were thrown into his grave. 

Lowell says, " The rare nature of Spenser was, like a 
Venice glass, meant only to mantle with the wine of sun- 
niest poesy. The first drop of poisonous sorrow shattered 
him." 

In character he was gentle, sensitive, affectionate, and 
good as well as great, one of the few whose life needs no 
apology. 

" More sweet than odors caught by him who sails, 

Near spicy shores of Araby the blest, 
^ A thousand times more exquisitely sweet 

The freight of holy feeling which we meet 

In thoughtful moments, wafted on the gales 

From fields where good men walk, 
And bowers wherein they rest." 




DESTRUCTION OF SPENSER'S CASTLE. 





c 



i## t^cJ/Ui*' 



SHAKESPEAEE. 



" In Stratford-upon-Avon, 

Where the silent waters flow, 
The immortal drama woke from sleep, 
Three hundred years ago." 

You remember that before Spenser appeared, the 
country was disturbed with civil wars ; the times were 
out of joint, and all was darkness and ignorance. But 
with time came light, and the age of Queen Elizabeth, 
made famous by its many great men, is considered the 
most brilliant in English history. High above all other 
names that adorn this period stands that of Shakespeare, 
the greatest literary genius the world has ever known. 



46 HOME PICTURES OE ENGLISH POETS. 

Very little can be learned with any certainty of this 
wonderful man — so little, that some have tried to prove 
that no such person ever lived — and one or two books 
have been published lately, endeavoring to prove that 
what are called Shakespeare's plays were really written 
by Lord Bacon. But we cannot believe this, and although 
it is indeed strange that few of his contemporaries ever 
mentioned him, and that he never alluded to any of the 
events which occurred during his lifetime, we still cling 
with faith to the few names, dates, traditions, and anec- 
dotes, which may or may not be true, but are all we have 
to tell us of the personal Shakespeare we love to believe 
in. 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke, in his address at the 
tercentenary celebration of Shakespeare's birth, shows us 
how easily critics might do away with the little evidence 
we have on this subject. He says: "If it should be 
thought desirable to treat Shakespeare as critics have 
treated Homer, Moses, and Christ, and deny his existence, 
they have an excellent opportunity and ample means for 
their destructive analysis. As they have proved to their 
satisfaction that the books of Moses are composed of 
innumerable independent historical fragments, carefully 
joined together, and so are a Mosaic work only in the 
artistic sense ; as they have taken away Homer, and left in 
his place a company of anonymous ballad-singers, so that 
we are able to settle the dispute between the seven cities 
which claimed to be his birthplace by giving them a 
Homer apiece, and having several Homers left ; as these 
able chemical critics have analyzed the Gospels, reducing 
them to their elements of legend, myth, and falsehood, 
with the smallest residuum of actual history, so much 
more easily can they dispose of the historic Shakespeare. 

" See, for example, how they might proceed. They 
might say, How can Shakespeare have been a real per- 



SHAKESPEARE. 47 

son, when his very name is spelled at least in two different 
ways in manuscripts professing to be his own autograph, 
and when it is found in the manuscripts of the period 
spelled in every form, and with every combination of letters 
w^hich express its sound or the semblance thereof ? One 
writer of his time calls him Shake-scene^ showing plainly 
the mythical origin of the word. 

" He is said to have married, at eighteen, a woman of 
twenty-six, which is not likely, and her name also has a 
mythical character — 'Anne Hathaway' — and was prob- 
ably derived from a Shakespeare song, addressed to a lady 
named Anne, the first line of which is- — 

1 Anne hath a way, Anne hath a way.' 

" If he were a living person, living in London in the 
midst of writers, poets, actors, and eminent men, is it 
credible that no allusion should be made to him by most 
of them ? He was contemporary with Sir Walter Raleigh, 
Edmund Spenser, Lord Bacon, Coke, Burleigh, Hooker, 
Queen Elizabeth, Henry IV. of France, Montaigne, Tasso, 
Cervantes, Galileo, Grotius, and not one of these, though so 
many of them were voluminous writers, refers to any such 
person, and no allusion to any of them appears in all his 
plays. He is referred to, to be sure, with excessive admira- 
tion by the group of play- writers, among whom he is sup- 
posed to move, but as there is not in all his works the 
least allusion in return»to any of them, we may presume 
that the name Shakespeare was a sort of nom de plume to 
which were referred all anonymous plays. 

" If such a man existed, why did not others out of this 
circle say something about his circumstances and life? 
Milton was eight years old when Shakespeare died, and 
might have seen him, as he took pains to go and see 
Galileo, who was born in the same year with Shakespeare. 
Oliver Cromwell was seventeen years old when Shake- 
3 



48 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

speare died; Descartes twenty years old; Rubens, the 
artist, thirty-nine years old. None of them have heard 
of him, though Rubens resided in England, and painted 
numerous portraits there. 

" The critic might add that there is something quite 
suspicious in his being said to have been bo*rn and to have 
died on the same day of the month — April 23d — and in 
the fact that Cervantes was said to have died on the same 
day as Shakespeare, and Michael Angelo in the same year. 
The year of his birth, he might add, seems to have some 
mythical significance, since Calvin is said to have died, 
and Galileo to have been born, each in 1564. 

" Many great events occurred in his supposed lifetime, 
to none of which he has alluded, as the battle of Lepanto, 
the Bartholomew massacre, the defeat of the Spanish 
armada, the first circumnavigation of the world, the gun- 
powder plot, the deliverance of Holland from Spain, the 
invention of the telescope, and the discovery thereby of 
Jupiter's satellites. In an era of the great controversy 
between the Roman and Protestant religions, no one can 
tell from his works whether he was Catholic or Protestant. 
Unlike Dante, Milton, and Goethe, he left no trace on the 
political or even social life of his time." 

I have quoted thus at length that you may gain, in a 
general way, some idea of the age, its great men and 
great events, and also see how plausible arguments can be 
brought to bear on the wrong sidsof any subject. 

Whately reasons in this fallacious way (merely for the 
sake of the argument), and makes it very evident that 
such a man as Napoleon never existed ; while Froude de- 
fends the character of Henry VHI. in good earnest, 
making him a high-toned patriot, a noble monarch, an ex- 
emplary father and husband, instead of the bloody tyrant, 
the modern Blue-beard, that he has appeared to our preju- 
diced minds, and De Quincey, going further yet, honestly 



SHAKESPEARE. 49 

tries to prove .that Judas Iscariot was a well-meaning man, 
a loyal, though mistaken, subject of his Divine Master. 
But, in spite of all this eloquent logic, the name of Judas 
Iscariot will still be the Slackest upon the page of human 
history; Henry Vill. will still be branded as the bad hus- 
band, the pseudo-Protestant ; Napoleon will still be the 
hero of Marengo and Austerlitz, and, with due deference 
to Miss Bacon and Judge Holmes, every one will still pre- 
fer to believe that Shakespeare was himself \ and not some- 
body else. 

He was born at Stratford-upon-Avon on the 23d of 
April, 1564, the oldest of six children. It has been dis- 
covered that his father's name was John, and that he was 
either a glover, a farmer, a butcher, or a dealer in wool ! 
How little thought that rustic sire, whose business is such 
a matter of doubt, as he gazed upon his baby-boy, 

" Mewling and puking in his mother's arms," 

that devotees from every clime, through every age, would 
make pilgrimages, as to a sacred shrine, to that homely 
chamber where "the .sweet bard of Avon" first saw the 
light ! Of his mother we only know that her name was 
Mary Arden, and that she possessed, when married, a 
pretty little fortune, which soon disappeared. 

Rowe, Shakespeare's first biographer, says : " His fam- 
ily, as appears by the register and public writings relating 
to the town, were of good figure and fashion there, and 
are mentioned as gentlemen." 

His father, up to the year 1574, was a man of consider- 
able estate and position. But in 1578 he had by some 
misfortune become so poor that he was not obliged to pay 
taxes, and William, after the age of fourteen, was obliged 
to earn his own bread. We are told that he attended the 
grammar-school in his native town, and, as usual, there 
are various stories of his rank there. But alas ! we know 



50 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

nothing certainly. No merit-roll was kept, no record of 
his jokes and frolics. 

Equally various and unsatisfactory are the stories of 
the way in which the next few years were employed. 
One author says, " He understood Latin pretty well, for 
he had been in his younger days a schoolmaster in the 
country." Another represents him as assisting his father 
in slaughtering animals, and says that when William killed 
a calf he would do it in a high style,, and make a speech. 
But I do not believe the young poet ever wasted any 
eloquence in an elegy on a dying calf. 

Some wise critics think that his dramas furnish abun- 
dant proof that he was a lawyer's clerk. But if we judge 
from this, we may as well say that he pursued all the 
learned professions, besides working occasionally at every 
other occupation in life. Married at the early age of eigh- 
teen, he could have had but little time to devote to learn- 
ing or labor. 

He is said to have been driven from his home, by a 
prosecution for deer-stealing, by Sir Thomas Lacy, but his 
friends deny the charge. One writer proves, first, that the 
offence was too mild to compel flight ; second, if he did 
steal the deer, it was not a moral offence ; and third, Lacy 
never kept deer ! This is too much like the famous case 
of the borrowed iron " kettle, which was found broken 
when returned. The defendant's counsel maintained, first, 
that the kettle was cracked when it was borrowed ; second, 
that it was used with the greatest care ; third, that he 
never had the kettle ! 

The early history of Shakespeare reveals a rollicking, 
frolicking, passionate, and headstrong boy, and the morals 
of the people among whom he was brought up did not 
tend to his sobriety. Bedford, a neighboring village, was 
famed for its beer. The people of the surrounding towns 
were divided into classes, known as topers and sippers, 



SHAKESPEARE. 51 

and used to challenge each other to drinking-bouts. 
Shakespeare was at the head of the Stratford party, and 
the crab-tree underneath which the tired revellers bivou- 
acked for the night, on their return from their tipsy frolics, 
was for a long time after known as " Shakespeare's Tree." 

At the age of twenty or twenty-three he went to Lon- 
don. Some say that, on his arrival in that great city, he 
held gentlemen's horses at the door of the theatre for a 
small fee ; others, that he filled the lowest place among 
Ihe actors, being merely the call-boy or prompter's attend- 
ant. We hear of him as an actor in 1589, and, soon after, 
he commenced writing, remodelling old dramas. The suc- 
cess of his plays was immediate and great, filling the 
theatres to overflowing. 

In England, at this time, the drama took the place now 
filled by the newspaper and novel, or, as Emerson says, 
it was " ballad, epic, newspaper, caucus, lecture, punch, 
and library, at the same time." The land swarmed with 
strolling players, ordinary carts carrying stage and actors 
about the country. There were fourteen theatres in and 
near London. The top was open to sun and rain, and the 
people sat on benches. There was but little scenery, but 
placards would be hung up on which were written, " A 
Castle," " A Country House," " A Temple," and the 
audience were obliged to imagine these objects. 

His talent as an actor was not remarkable ; the ghost in 
" Hamlet " and Adam in " As You Like It " were his favor- 
ite parts. " But his magic pen has taught us almost to for- 
get that he ever was an actor, nor can we, without a violent 
stretch of fancy, realize our greatest poet stalking slowly 
with whitened cheeks across the boards, or tottering in old- 
fashioned livery through a rudely-painted forest of Arden." 

He also owned shares in two theatres, and was con- 
stantly adapting and altering old plays, and writing new 
ones. He soon became known, and gained wealth and 



52 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

troops of friends. The wits of that day used to meet 
at some public house to enjoy each other's company, and 
drink wine and ale. Ben Jonson and Shakespeare had 
many brilliant word-combats, which set the table in a roar. 
The famous " Mermaid Tavern " was the favorite re- 
sort of Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, and 
other great spirits of the time. Beaumont speaks of these 
merry meetings in a sonnet to Jonson : 

" What things have we seen 
Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been 
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
As if they every one from whence they came, 
Had meant to put his whole soul in a jest, 
And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
Of his dull life." 

Jonson, who appreciated Shakespeare both as friend 
and antagonist, said of him, 

" He was not for an age, but for all time." 

In writing for the stage, he borrowed in all directions, 
using freely whatever suited his purpose. For instance, 
Malone has computed that out of 6,043 lines in Henry VI., 
only 1,899 are entirely his own. 

But (to quote from Emerson's essay) "Shakespeare 
knew that tradition supplies a better fable than any in- 
vention can. If he lost any credit of design, he augment- 
ed his resources; and at that day our petulant demand 
for originality was not so much pressed. There was no 
literature for the million. The universal reading, the cheap 
press, were unknown. A great poet, who appears in illiter- 
ate times, absorbs into his sphere all the light which is any- 
where radiating. Every intellectual jewel, every flower 
of sentiment, it is his fine office to bring to his people ; 
and he comes to value his memory equally withh is inven- 
tion. He is therefore little solicitous whence his thoughts 



SHAKESPEARE. 53 

have been derived ; whether through translation, whether 
through tradition, whether by travel in distant countries, 
whether by inspiration ; from whatever source, they are 
equally welcome to his uncritical audience. Nay, he bor- 
rows very near home. Often men say wise things as well 
as he ; only they say a good many foolish things, and do 
not know when they have spoken wiseiy. He knows the 
sparkle of the true stone, and puts it in high place wher- 
ever he finds it." 

You may like to see a few stanzas from the old ballad 
where Shakespeare undoubtedly found the story on which 
he built his great drama of " The Merchant of Venice." 
It is called 

" GERNUTUS, THE JEW OF VENICE. 

" The bloudie Jew now ready is 
With whetted blade in hand, 
To spoyle the bloud of innocent, 
By forfeit of his bond. 

" And as he was about to strike, 

In him, the deadly blow ; 
* Stay/ quoth the Judge, ' thy crueltie, 

I charge thee to do so. 

" '^ith needs thou will thy forfeit have, 
Which is of flesh a pound ; 
See that thou shed no drop of bloud, 
Nor yet the man confound. 

" ; For if thou do, like murderer 
Thou here shalt hanged be ; 
Likewise of flesh see that thou cut 
No more than 'longs to thee. 

" ' For if thou take either more or lesse 
To the value of a mite, 
Thou shalt be hanged presently, 
As is both law and ri^ht.' 



54 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" At the last he doth demand 

But for to have his owne : 
1 No,' quoth the judge, * doe as you list, 

Thy judgement shall be showne. 

" ' Either take your pound of flesh/ quoth he, 
' Or cancell me your bond.' 
1 Cruell judge,' then quoth the Jew, 
i That doth against me stand ! ' 

" And so with griping, grieved mind 
He biddeth them farewell : 
Then all the people praysed the Lord, 
That ever this heard tell. 

" Good people, that doe heare this song, 
For trueth I dare well say, 
That many a wretch as ill as hee 
Doth live now at this day, 

" That seeketh nothing but the spoyle 
Of many a wealthy man, 
And for to trap the innocent, 
Deviseth what they can. 

" From whome the Lord deliver me, 
And every Christian too, 
And send to them like sentence eke, 
That meaneth so to do." 

No wonder that his brother actors were jealous and 
envious of the man who had the genius to transform this 
old ballad of thirty verses into the " Merchant of Venice," 
and whose plays were " most singularly liked " by Queen 
Elizabeth. The complaint of one of them has been pre- 
served. He said, " There is an upstart crow, beautified 
with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapt in a 
player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out 
a blank verse as the best of you ; and, being an absolute 
Johannes Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only 
Shake-scene in a country ! " 



SHAKESPEARE. 55 

While Shakespeare was thus living in London, charm- 
ing the public, enraging his rivals, and astonishing all, 
his family remained quietly at Stratford, in the old home 
with his parents. 

His marriage does not seem to have been a happy one. 
Mistress Anne probably had-a-way that was neither sooth- 
ing nor agreeable to the poet, who used to run away from 
his gay and busy life for a few days each summer to pet 
his favorite child Susanna, and have a romp with the 
twins, Hamnet and Judith. His son died at the age of 
twelve, and in the next year, 1597, he purchased the finest 
house and grounds in the town, called New Place, and 
fitted them up handsomely, that he might have a comfort- 
able home to which he could retire when weary of the 
excitements of a city. It was in this garden he planted 
the mulberry-tree of which Garrick has sung so enthusi- 
astically : 

" Behold this fair goblet ! 'Twas carved from the tree, 
Which, my sweet Shakespeare, was planted by thee I 
As a relic I kiss it, and bow at thy shrine, 
What comes from thy hand must be ever divine. 
All shall yield to the mulberry-tree; 

Bend to thee 

Blest mulberry ! 

Matchless was he 

Who planted thee, * . 

And thou like him, immortal shalt be. 

" The oak is held royal, is Britain's great boast, 
Preserved once our king, and will always our coast ; 
But of fir we make ships, we have thousands that fight, 
While one, only one, like our Shakespeare can write. 

" Then each take a relic of this hallowed tree ; 
From folly and fashion a charm let it be ; 
Fill, fill to the planter the cup to the brim — 
To honor the country, do honor to Aim." 

Irving tells us, in his own delightful style, of the 



56 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

various relics he found at the birthplace of Shakespeare; 
"There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock 
with which Shakespeare shot the deer, on his poaching 
exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box ; which proves 
that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh ; the 
sword also with which he played Hamlet ; and the identi- 
cal lantern with which Friar Lawrence discovered Romeo 
and Juliet at the tomb ! There was an ample supply also 
of Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, which seems to have as 
extraordinary powers of self-multiplication as the wood 
of the true cross; of which there is enough extant to 
build a ship-of-the-line. . 

" The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is 
Shakespeare's chair. It stands in the chimney-nook of a 
small gloomy chamber, just behind what was his father's 
shop. Here he may many a time have sat when a boy, 
watching the slowly-revolving spit with all the longing 
of an urchin ; or of an evening, listening to the cronies 
and gossips of Stratford, dealing forth churchyard tales 
and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times of 
England. In this chair it is the custom of every one that 
visits the house to sit ; whether this be done with the hope 
of imbibing any of the inspirations of the bard, I am 
at a loss to say, I merely mention the fact ; and mine 
hostess privately assured me, that though built of solid 
oak, such was the fervent zeal of devotees, that the chair 
had to be new-bottomed at least once in three years. It 
is worthy of notice also, in the history of this extraor- 
dinary chair, that it partakes something of the volatile 
nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto, or the flying chair 
of the Arabian enchanter; for, although sold some few 
years since to a northern princess, yet, strange to tell, it 
has found its way back again to the old chimney corner." 

An old minister, who afterward lived at "New 
Place," actually cut down that "blest mulberry!" be- 



SHAKESPEARE. 57 

cause it attracted so many visitors. I wonder if Garrick's 
ghost did not haunt him after that act of vandalism ! 

The year 1612 is given as the date of Shakespeare's 
return to his Stratford home. Perhaps failing health led 
him to seek repose, for he lived only a few years after the 
change, having died on the 23d of April, 1616, his fifty- 
second birthday. He was buried in Stratford church, and 
his grave was at first marked by a plain stone, with an in- 
scription, said to be written by himself. Here is a fac- 
simile of the inscription : 

" Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, 
to digg he dvst encloased ieare : 
BLES'E be y .man y spares ties stones, 

AND CYRST BE EE Y MOVES MY BONES." 

This singular epitaph has prevented his remains from 
being placed in Westminster Abbey, and reveals, it is 
thought, his belief in the resurrection of the body. 

Some unknown artist executed a statue of the poet, 
sitting beneath an arch, with a desk before him, and a pen 
in his hand. This was colored to the life, eyes light hazel; 
hair and beard of an auburn tinge, with a scarlet doublet 
and black gown. All the busts of Shakespeare are said to 
be taken from this. * 

In his will, written a short time before his death, we 
find a careful, loving remembrance of many of his old 
comrades, to each of whom he gave some token of his 
regard, generally a ring. But to his wife there was noth- 
ing left but the " second best bed, with the hangings " ! 
Poor Anne ! termagant and virago though she may have 
been, one cannot help pitying a woman handed down to 
immortality in that fashion. She would certainly have 
been " more honored in the breach than the observance." 

You notice that one of the pictures illustrating this 
sketch represents the great dramatist reading one of his 



58 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

plays to Elizabeth. This is not an historic fact, but one 
of those traditions that have been created by later writers 
to embellish his life. Yet he was undoubtedly popular 
with Elizabeth and James, who attended the theatre where 
his plays were acted. Some writer says, that Queen 
Elizabeth was so well pleased with the admirable charac- 
ter of Falstaff in the two parts of " Henry IV." that she 
commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to 
show him in love. This is said to be the occasion of his 
writing the " Merry Wives of Windsor," but there is no 
proof of this. 

We are certain, however, that Queen Bess, true to her 
sex, was not averse to receiving a graceful compliment, 
and, among her wily, flatterering train of courtiers, there 
was not one who could compete successfully in this respect 
with the once obscure playwright, who, by the might of 
his unaided genius, eclipsed them'all. As a proof of this, 
read Cranmer's prophecy at the christening of the infant 
Elizabeth, in " King Henry VIII. : " 

" Let me speak, sir, 
For Heaven now bids me ; and the words I utter 
Let none think flattery, for they'll find them truth. 
This royal infant (Heaven still move about her ! ) 
Though in her cradle, yet now promises 
Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, 
Which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be 
(But few now living can behold that goodness) 
A pattern to all princes living with her, 
And all that shall succeed : Sheba was never 
More covetous of wisdom, and fair virtue, 
Than this pure soul shall be ; all princely graces 
That mould up such a mighty piece as this is, 
With all the virtues that attend the good, 
Shall still be doubled on her ; truth shall nurse her ; 
Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her : 
She shall be loved and feared ; Her own shall bless her ; 
Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, 



SHAKESPEARE. 59 

And hang their heads with sorrow ; good grows with her; 

In her days, every man shall eat in safety 

Under his own vine, what he plants ; and sing 

The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors ; 

God shall be truly known ; and those about her 

From her shall read the perfect ways of honor, 

And by those claim their greatness, not by blood. 

She shall be, to the happiness of England, 

An aged princess ; many days shall see her, 

And yet no day without a deed to crown it. 

Would I had known no more ! but she must die ; 

She must ; the saints must have her — yet a virgin ; 

A most unspotted lily shall she pass 

To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her." 

Richard Grant White, the most thorough Shakesperian 
scholar and critic in this country, tells us that he has 
found but o^e passage in praise of woman, in the whole 
of Shakespeare's writings, and this he calls "cold and 
conceitish." You will find the passage in "Love's 
Labor's Lost : " 

11 From women's eyes this doctrine I derive, 
They sparkle still, the right Promethean fire ; 
They are the books, the arts, the academies 
That show, contain, and nourish all the world." 

Praises of particular women are numerous, but not of 
the sex ; and, on the other hand, there is no lack of sharp 
censure. Yet Shakespeare's women are at once the noblest, 
loveliest, and truest to nature, that have ever been de- 
scribed. This incongruity is owing partly to the influence 
which his unhappy marriage had upon his mind, and part- 
ly to the state of society at the time. He never indulged 
in the impossible, and judged of women as they were 
judged by the world in his day. 

Henry Giles says : " Shakespeare's women are no fic- 
tions, no coinage of a heated brain, drunk with the fumes 
of reverie, when the realities of society are lost in the 



60 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

loneliness of woods, or the realities of day forgotten in the 
fantasies of midnight. They are no such attenuated illu- 
sions as are thus created — mixture of sunshine and vapor, 
shapes of mist and moonlight — that play for a moment on 
the feelings, gleam dimly across the imagination, then 
leave no trace on the memory or affections. Shakespeare's 
women are drawn from life — drawn as nature makes them 
in substance, soul, and form. Each has the individualism 
of reality — the distinctness of personal existence." 

Freeman Clarke says that "this creative, unifying 
power of imagination also causes Shakespeare's characters 
to differ from those of all other writers. Sis unfold from a 
living centre ; theirs are moulded from without. His grow 
like a plant from its seed ; theirs are carved like a statue 
from a block of marble. Therefore, Shakespeare's charac- 
ters are like so many real human beings added to mankind. 
We refer to them as illustrations of human nature, as ex- 
amples of human conduct, just as we should to real beings. 
It is not so with the creations of any other writer. Take 
the characters of Scott, of Schiller, of Goethe ; they are 
not quite persons. They are abstractions ; they owe 
something to costume, to circumstances. Take an every- 
day man, and educate him in the middle ages as a knight, 
and you have Ivanhoe ; take the same man, and let him 
be brought up in Scotland, in the days of John Knox, and 
you have Halbert Glendinning. In all Goethe's characters 
you get a glimpse of Goethe himself; in all of Scott's 
you catch the twinkle of the sheriff's eye. But each one 
of Shakespeare's men and women is as distinctly, though 
often as slightly, individualized as the two leaves of neigh- 
boring trees — almost the same, yet forever immutably 
different." 

Collier says that " so true and subtile an interpreter 
of the human soul, in its myriad moods, has never written 
novel, play, or poem. The door of his fancy opened «as if 



SHAKESPEARE. 61 

of its own accord, and out trooped such a procession as 
the world had never seen. The bloodiest crimes and the 
broadest fun were there ; the fresh, silvery laughter of girls 
and the maniac shriekings of a wretched old man; the 
stern music of war, and the roar of tavern rioters, mingled 
with a thousand other various sounds, yet no discordant 
note was heard in the manifold chorus." 

Most great writers show themselves in their works, but 
Shakespeare has painted all faces, from the king to the 
beggar ; sages and sots ; saints and sinners ; heroes and 
villains ; yet we cannot say that the poet himself sat for a 
single picture in the whole gallery. 

No other English writer has been so often reviewed, so 
often quoted, so closely criticised, so highly commended. 

Voltaire gives the following account of " Hamlet :" " It 
is a gross and barbarous piece, which would not be en- 
dured by the vilest populace of France or Italy. Hamlet 
goes crazy in the second act ; his mistress goes crazy in 
the third. The prince kills the father of his mistress, pre- 
tending to kill a rat. They dig a grave on the stage. The 
grave-diggers say abominably gross things, holding the 
skulls of the dead in their hands. Hamlet replies in 
answers no less disgusting and silly than theirs. During 
this time Poland is conquered by one of the actors. 
Hamlet, his mother, and father-in-law, drink together on 
the stage ; they sing, quarrel, fight, and kill each other. 
One would think this play the work of the imagination of 
a drunken savage" 

Hume and the critics of his school undervalued Shake- 
speare, because they judged every work by classic rules. 
They put Nature into a strait-jacket, because, in her wild- 
est freaks, she seemed to them a lunatic, and they put 
Nature's children into a treadmill, because they forgot 
the strict laws of art. " But human nature is a vagabond 
itself, maugre the six thousand years of it, and it is this 



62 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

vagabond feeling in the blood which draws one so strong- 
ly to Shakespeare. That sweet and liberal nature blos- 
somed with all human generosities." 

And now what can I tell you, in a few lines, of his won- 
derful plays, except to read, re-read, and study them, begin- 
ning, perhaps, with the five tragedies — " Hamlet," " Lear," 
" Othello," " Macbeth," " Romeo and Juliet." His thirty- 
seven dramas are classed as tragedies, comedies, and his- 
tories. Dr. Johnson says, in his preface to Shakespeare's 
works : " He that tries to recommend him by select quota- 
tions, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when 
he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket 
as a specimen." So I will not attempt the impossibility 
of giving a few extracts to show his style. You should be 
as familiar with his characters as with those of your home 
friends, and the more you read, the more you will find to 
admire. He has furnished maxims for every condition of 
life, and seems to have known and felt all joys and sorrows. 
He has a good moral influence, for he always makes us love 
goodness and hate sin. He stands so far above common 
mortals, that, judging Shakespeare, is really judging one's 
self, and he who can find no charm in his writings must 
be very deficient in both head and heart. The influence 
of his plays in England and the United States has ex- 
ceeded that of all other writings, except the Bible ; and 
his words will thrill the hearts of future generations down 
to the " last syllable of recorded time." 

Hazlitt says : " The characteristic of Chaucer is in- 
tensity ; of Spenser, remoteness ; of Milton, elevation ; of 
Shakespeare, every thing" 

Many adjectives and epithets have been used to praise 
or describe him — such as " honey-tongued," " gentle," "ju- 
dicious," " myriad-minded," " pleasant Willy," " Nature's 
darling," " Fancy's child ; " but, as Whipple says, " these 
fond but belittling phrases and pet epithets, which other 



SHAKESPEARE. 



63 



authors have condescended to shower upon him, are as 
little appropriate as would be the patronizing chatter of 
the planet Venus about the dear darling little Sun" and 
nothing can ennoble the name of Shakespeare. 

" Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven ; 
No pyramid set off his memories 
But the eternal substance of his greatness.'' 

Let me give, in closing, a few words from Henry Giles : 
" Some writers we are willing to associate with an age, to 
associate with a country; with others we will not do 
this, and we cannot Let Athens have Aristophanes ; but 
even all Greece shall not keep Homer : we give Calderon 
to Spain; but every nation owns Cervantes: Dante 
belongs to Italy ; Milton belongs to England ; but Shake- 
speare belongs to man" 




SHAKESPEARE READING HIS PLAYS TO QUEEN ELIZABETH. 




MILTON. 



" Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart ; 
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea, 
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free. 
So didst thou travel on life's common way 
To cheerful godliness, and yet thy heart 
The lowliest duties on thyself did lay." 

As Shakespeare was walking down Broad Street, Lon- 
don, to the Mermaid Tavern, where he used to meet his 
friends and make merry over cups of canary, his attention 
was attracted by a child of six, seated on a doorway, 
singing a melody, and upon an old-fashioned instrument 
stretching his tiny fingers in search of pleasing chords. 
It was a little Puritan boy, with closely-cropped hair, 
large lace frill about his neck, and closely-fitting black 



MILTON. 65 

coat; be who, in after-years, was to sing in sublimer 
strains — 

" Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world and all our woe." 

If any precise critic should ask how I know that this 
pretty, sweet-voiced boy was ever seen by Shakespeare, 
I shall have to confess that the scene is but a picture in 
my own mind, one of the many things that " might have 
been." 

John" Mllton was born in London, December 9, 
1608. His father, who had been disinherited for adopting 
the Protestant faith, was an educated man, with a great 
deal of musical ability, a " scrivener " by profession, his 
business being very much like that of the modern at- 
torney. Before the invention of printing, the scriveners 
were penmen of all kinds of writing, often copying literary 
manuscripts as well as charters and law papers. Chaucer 
has an epigram, in which he lampoons his scrivener Adam 
for doing his work badly. At this time the profession 
was an honorable one. The general aspect of their 
"shops " was like the offices of modern lawyers ; a chief 
desk for the master, side desks for the apprentices, pigeon- 
holes and drawers for parchments, and seats for customers. 
They often lent money at a profitable interest. In. the 
" Taming of the Shrew," a boy is sent for the scrivener to 
draw up a marriage settlement : 

" We'll pass the business privately and well. 
Send for your daughter by your servant here ; 
My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently." 

Like most great men, Milton had a good mother, who 
was famed for her charity, and his home was a happy one, 
though sobered by the grave Puritanic piety which was 
then the order of the day. Music took a high place in his 



66 HOME PICTUKES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

father's plan of education, who was himself " a voluminous 
composer, equal in science, if not in genius, to the best 
musicians of his age," and under his skilful tuition Milton 
became an accomplished organist. " Often, as a child, he 
must have bent over his father, while composing, or lis- 
tened to him as he played ; often at evening, when two or 
three musical acquaintances would call, the voices in the 
Spread-Eagle would suffice for a little household concert." 
Their house took its name from the family coat-of-arms. 
In his boyhood he studied at home, with a private tutor, 
whom he loved very much. At ten years of age he was a 
poet; at eleven, he was a prodigy in the house, as a 
writer of verses. A portrait of the child at that time still 
exists. It represents the youthful poet in a striped jacket 
and richly-embroidered collar ; the auburn hair cut close 
round the head, and the face sweet, amiable, and serious. 
How proud and fond his parents were of their bright and 
handsome boy ! I imagine that he was sober, dignified, 
and earnest, with little love of fun or roguery. He is 
thought to have described himself in this passage from 
" Paradise Regained : " 

" When I was a child, no childish play- 
To me was pleasing, all my mind was set 
Serious to learn, and know, and then to do 
What might be public good. Myself I thought 
Born to that end, to promote all truth 
And righteous things.' , 

At the early age of twelve he often studied until mid- 
night, and, with the imperfect lights then in use, injured 
his eyes, whose sight he afterward lost, by overtasking 
them. His great knowledge of the Bible is due to his 
father and his Puritan teachers. English authors did not, 
of course, escape his notice. At fifteen he was admitted to 
St. Paul's school, there also studying too hard, bring- 
ing on frequent headaches and increasing the weakness of 



MTLTOX. 67 

his eyes. There was much to tempt a mind, so eager for 
knowledge, in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jon- 
son, and Shakespeare, which graced the booksellers' shops 
where he rambled, and were eagerly conned by him, little 
dreaming that his writings would one day be placed with 
theirs. While at this school he wrote a little poetry, and 
translated the 114th and 136th Psalms into English verse, 
in a way that won high praise. 

In his seventeenth year he went to Cambridge, where 
he spent seven years, studying hard as ever, and showing 
great skill in Latin verses. He was at this time extremely 
handsome, and was, no doubt, raved about by the young 
ladies of the town. From his beautiful face and slender, 
elegant form, he was called " the lady of the college," 
though, I am sure, there was nothing unmanly about him. 
He says himself that he did not neglect daily practice with 
the sword, and, when armed with it, as he generally was, he 
was in the habit of thinking himself quite a match for any 
one, even though much more robust, and of being perfectly 
at his ease as to any injury that any one could offer him, 
"man to man." His complexion was fresh and fair as a 
girl's, and^ his dark-gray eyes were full of expression, while 
his long auburn hair, beautiful and curling, flowed to his 
ruff on both sides his oval face. It Is said that, in a long 
walk one summer's day, he became so tired and heated that, 
lying down under a tree to rest, he soon fell asleep. Two 
ladies, foreigners, happened to pass in a carriage, and, 
charmed by his lovely appearance, alighted for a nearer 
view. The younger lady, a beautiful girl, drew a pen- 
cil from her pocket, and, writing a few lines, placed 
them in the hand of the handsome youth, her own dainty 
fingers trembling with emotion. One of his friends, walk- 
ing by, saw the adventure, and waking him told him the 
story. Milton opened the paper, and read with surprise a 
verse from an Italian poet, which said — 



68 HOME PICTUBES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" Ye eyes ! ye human stars ! 
Ye authors of my liveliest pangs ! 
If thus when shut ye wound me, 
What must have proved the 
Consequeuce had ye been open ? " 

He tried long and eagerly to find out his fair admirer, 
but in vain. He could not be called particularly modest ; 
indeed, his self-esteem amounted almost to vanity. He 
was not, as some one quaintly observes, " ignorant of his 
own parts." And he had reason to be a little vain. But 
a boy in years, he was already familiar with the Latin, 
French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew tongues, and was 
marvellously learned in many directions, besides being well 
read in all the current literature of the day. In fact, he 
proved rather a disagreeable pupil for the " fossil profess- 
ors " at Christ College. He dared to criticise their time- 
honored methods of teaching as superficial and hackneyed, 
and they at first treated him harshly, " as a presumptuous 
and conceited upstart," but learned in the end to appre- 
ciate and admire his genius. Speaking of the young men 
sent to the colleges for education, he says : " Their honest 
and ingenuous natures, coming to the university to feed 
themselves with good and solid learning, are there unfor- 
tunately fed with notEing else but the scragged and thorny 
lectures of monkish and miserable sophistry. They are 
sent home again with such a scholastic bur in their throats 
as hath stopped and hindered all true and generous phi- 
losophy from entering ; cracked their voices forever with 
metaphysical gaggarisms ; hath made them admire a sort 
of formal outside men, prelatically addicted, whose un- 
chastened and overwrought minds were never yet immuted 
nor subdued under the law of moral or religious virtue, 
which two are the greatest and best points of learning." 

" The conflict between rotten formalism and scoffing 
infidelity on one side, and earnest living and sincere devo- 



MILTON". 69 

tion on the other, which ere long lighted the flames of 
civil war throughout Great Britain, seems to have already 
commenced at the university when Milton entered it." 
And you see that he was already too frank and fearless in 
expressing his views to be popular. Before he was of 
age, he had commenced his career as a controversialist. 

But his whole time was not given to discussions with 
the " Dons." Christ's College was one of the largest and 
most comfortable in the university, with a spacious garden, 
bowling-green, a beautiful pond, and shady walks, in true 
academic style. Milton's rooms were on the first floor, 
looking out on the court, and there he read and studied, 
with very little regard to the usual course. There, too, 
he wrote, at the age of twenty-one, his grand hymn on the 
Nativity. In the garden there still stands, preserved with 
the greatest care, a mulberry-tree, which he planted in 
1633, the year in which he entered. Every spring it puts 
forth its leaves, in all the vigor of youth, and bears deli- 
cious fruit in autumn. Its wide-spreading branches are 
supported by props, and this precious memento is guarded 
so reverently that it will no doubt send out its sweet blos- 
soms many years longer. 

Milton's father had now retired to a quiet parish, about 
seventeen miles west of London; and, leaving, the univer- 
sity at twenty-four, the young poet passed five, years in 
the country in pleasant repose, studying and composing, 
with no idea that in the future he was to be a leader in 
reform and a valiant champion of liberty. One of his 
biographers has given a pleasant description of his new 
home : " The little village, containing at that time but 
few families, was quiet, and very beautiful — one of those 
sweet old English towns in which we desire to. lie down 
and dream — precisely the nook for a speculative thinker 
or a poet. It was scatteringly built, the houses playing 
at hide-and-seek among the trees and intervening foliage, 



70 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

with no continuous streets, but only a great tree in the 
centre of an open space, where three roads met, and sug- 
gested that there might be more habitations about the 
spot than at first appeared, which suggestion was con- 
firmed on looking down one of the roads by the sight of 
an old church-tower, ivy-covered, and with a cemetery in 
front, which you entered between two extremely old yew- 
trees. Here it was that Milton, together with other mem- 
bers of his family, worshipped regularly for five years, 
during his residence in the hamlet. One could lie under 
the elm-trees in the lawn, saunter through the green mead- 
ows, by the rippling streamlet, from a rustic bridge watch 
the lazy mill-wheel, or walk along quiet roads, well hedged, 
deviate into by-paths leading past farm-yards and or- 
chards, or through rich pastures, where horses, cows, and 
sheep, were wont to graze — an elysium, indeed, for the 
weary Londoner — a c Paradise regained ' for the younger 
Milton." 

Don't you suppose that the steady old farmers about 
Horton parish thought this pale-faced, serious student, 
who spent his time in scribbling poems, or reading dull 
books, never caring to swing a scythe or guide the plough, 
rather a good-for-nothing fellow ? No doubt they thanked 
their stars, as they saw him wandering with book in hand 
through the shady lanes, or sitting with pen and paper 
under his father's elms, that their boys were hard workers 
and had no such nonsense in their heads. 

Though he says he " spent a complete holiday in turn- 
ing over the Greek and Latin writers " while at Horton, 
jet Milton -was far from idle, for it was during the first 
three years of his life there that he composed five of his 
finest poems — the " Sonnet to a Nightingale," " Arcadles," 
" Comus " and " L' Allegro," and " II Penseroso." These 
poems are unique, and have no seconds of their kind. If 
he had done nothing else, he would have been immortal. 



MILTON. 71 

It is impossible to do the least justice to them by quoting 
a few lines here and there ; and yet I cannot pass them 
by without a few extracts. The " Masque of Comus " was 
suggested by the following facts : The Earl of Bridge- 
water was spending the summer months in his castle near 
Horton, and it happened that his two sons and his daugh- 
ter, the Lady Alice Egerton 9 were benighted and be- 
wildered in Haywood Forest, where the brothers, seeking 
a homeward path, left the sister alone awhile, in a tract of 
country inhabited by boorish peasantry. " Such was all 
the story, simpler than the ballad of the i Children in the 
Wood ; ' and yet it is transfigured into a poem of a thou- 
sand lines — a moral drama, showing the communion of 
natural and supernatural life, the mysterious society of 
human beings, and the guardian and tempting spirits 
hovering round their paths ; it teaches, with a poet's teach- 
ing, how the spiritual and intellectual nature may be in 
peril from the charms of worldly pleasure, and how the 
philosophic faith and the Heaven-assisted virtue are seen 
at last to triumph. The guardianship of ministering 
angels — their encampment round the dwellings of the 
just — is finely announced in the opening lines, spoken by 
the attendant spirit alighting in the wood when the 
human footsteps are astray : " 

" Before the starry threshold of Jove's court 
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes 
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered, 
In regions mild, of calm and serene air, 
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, 
Which men call earth, and with low-thoughted care, 
Confined and pestered in this pinfold here, 
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being, 
Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives 
After this mortal change to her true servants, 
Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats. 
Yet some there be, that by due steps aspire 
4 



72 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

To lay their just hands on that golden key 
That opes the palace of eternity ; 
To such, my errand is, and but for such, 
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds 
With the rank vapors of this sin-worn mould.'' 

Here are a few more lines, which are most quoted : 

" He that has light within his own clear breast, 
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day ; 
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts, 
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun ; 
Himself is his own dungeon." 

" So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity, 
That when a soul is found sincerely so, 
A thousand liveried, angels lackey her, 
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, 
And in clear dream and solemn vision 
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, 
Till oft converse with heavenly habitants, 
Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, 
The unpolluted temple of the mind, 
And tunes it by degrees to the soul's essence, 
Till all be made immortal." 

" How charming is divine philosophy ! 
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose/ 
But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns." 

When the fair maiden is at last secured from the 
wicked magic which failed to harm her, the good spirit 
which guarded her speeds away, with these words : 

" Now my task is smoothly done, 
I can fly or I can run 
Quickly to the green earth's end 
Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, 
And from thence can soar as soon 
To the corners of the moon. 



MILTON. 73 

Mortals, that would follow me, 
Love Virtue ; she alone is free ; 
Sh© can teach ye how to climb ; 
Higher than the sphery chime ; 
Or if Virtue feeble were, 
Heaven itself would stoop to her." 

" L' Allegro " can easily be committed to memory, and is 
so full of beauty, sunshine, and frolic, and pleasant sights 
and sounds, that its recitation will prove a good recipe for 
making a sad heart merry. 

Milton had at this time no settled plans for the future. 
He was designed by his father for the church, but he 
could not sign the articles and indorse the doctrines of 
the English Church, which was at this time reviving the 
horrors of the Inquisition, to punish and silence the free 
speech of the Dissenters. 

" The church," he says, " to whose service, by the in- 
tention of my parents and friends, I was destined of a 
child, and in my own resolutions, till, coming to some 
maturity of years, and perceiving what tyranny had in- 
vaded in the church — that he who would take orders must 
subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he 
took with a conscience that would retch, he must either 
perjure, or split his faith — I thought it better to prefer 
a blameless silence before the sacred office of speaking, 
bought and begun with servitude and forswearing." 

He had also some thoughts of studying law, but at 
last decided that his brother Christopher should be the 
lawyer of the family, and gave himself up to a " ceaseless 
round of study and reading," with the purpose of doing 
what he could with pen and tongue to enrich the literature 
and improve the morals of his age. He said at this time, 
that he " cared not how late he came into life, only that 
. he came fit," and " perhaps leave something so written to 
after-times as they should not willingly let it die." 



74 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

In 1637 he lost his good mother, a woman of rare 
talents and virtues, and, without her saintly presence, the 
home at Horton seemed sad and deflate. Very soon 
after this great sorrow, he learned of the death of one of 
his old college-friends, Edward King, who was drowned 
while on his way to Ireland. It was for him that 
" Lycidas," that beautiful pastoral elegy, was written : 

" Yet once more, ye laurels ! and once more, 
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude ; 
And, with forced fingers rude, 
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, 
Compels me to disturb your season due : 
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime — 
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer : 
Who would not sing for Lycidas ? he knew 
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. 
He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
Without the meed of some melodious tear." 

Depressed by this twofold affliction, and worn by con- 
stant study, Milton now felt a longing for travel, and 
determined to go abroad. Leaving his aged father in 
the care of his younger brother, who had just been 
married, he bade adieu to his friends, and to the quiet 
rural scenes where he had passed his happiest years, and 
sailed from England in April, 1638. After a brief stay in 
Paris, Milton journeyed leisurely through Southern France 
to Italy, carrying with him letters of recommendation, 
which secured for him the distinguished attention which 
he so well deserved. His whole journey was one con- 
tinued ovation. There is enough in Italy to waken the 
most prosaic soul ; think, then, of Milton, who was as 
familiar with its language as his own, who had learned its 
glorious legends by heart, and studied its history from his 



MILTON. 75 

boyhood ! How he revelled in the treasures of art to be 
found there ! They doubtless affected his style in later 
years, for the arts depend beautifully upon each other, and, 
feasting on these rare gems in marble and on the canvas, 
he gained many subjects, for his pen. The thought of 
writing an epic poem first came to him while there. The 
frescoes of Michael Augeio, then fresh in the Sistine 
Chapel, the milder beauties of Raphael, the marble of 
Bandinelli, who had executed statues of Adam and Eve, 
had probably great influence in directing his mind to the 
study of those early scenes of the creation which he has 
grouped for immortality in the " Paradise Lost." There 
is much in Milton that is like Michael Angelo, who was 
the painter of the Old Testament. The style of both was 
severe and sublime. Both loved to deal with the primeval 
forms of nature, inanimate and human. At Florence 
he passed an hour at Galileo's villa, received with cordial 
kindness by the blind old sage. To use his own words : 
" There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, 
grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking in 
astronomy otherwise than as the Franciscan and Domini- 
can licensers thought." 

While at Rome, the Cardinal Barbesini gave a mag- 
nificent concert in his honor, bringing him into the 
assembly by his own hand. 

He was introduced at Naples to Manso, the Marquis 
of Villa, the patron and biographer of Tasso, who enter- 
tained him most hospitably in his own palace, and declared 
that he had no fault but that of heresy. When he was 
leaving, Manso gave him this Latin distich : 

" With mind, mien, temper, face, did faith agree, 
Not Anglic, but an Angel, wouldst thou be." 

The struggle in England, between Prelate and Puritan, 
was but a picket-skirmish compared with the great battle 



76 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

that was raging fiercely over all Christendom, called the 
" Thirty Years' War " — a conflict caused by the same ques- 
tion — the freedom of religious thought for the people. 

Milton made no secret of his opinions, speaking as 
boldly at Rome as elsewhere. He was told that snares 
were laid for him in that city, by the English Jesuits, and 
hints were thrown out of the Inquisition, with advice not 
to return. But this warning made no difference in his fear- 
lessness of speech. He says : " I had made this resolution 
with myself — not indeed of my own accord — to introduce 
in those places conversation about religion ; but, if inter- 
rogated respecting the faith, then, whatever I should 
suffer, to dissemble nothing. To Rome, therefore, I did 
return, notwithstanding what I had been told ; what I 
* was, if any one asked, I concealed from no one ; if any 
one, in the very city of the Pope, attacked the orthodox 
religion, I, as before, for a second space of nearly two 
months, defended it most freely." He was certainly 
treated, as he said, with " singular politeness," for it would 
have been dangerous for any other person to have upheld 
a different faith from the passionate Italians. 

He wished to pursue his travels farther, but duty called 
him home. In his own words : " While I was desirous to 
cross into Sicily and Greece, the sad news of the civil war 
coming from England called me back ; for I considered it 
disgraceful that, while my fellow-countrymen were fight- 
ing at home for liberty, I should be travelling at ease for 
intellectual purposes." 

So he retraced his former route through France, arriv- 
ing in England early in August, 1639, after an absence of 
fifteen months. He was* now in the prime of life, the full 
bloom of manly beauty and accomplishments ; unstained 
by the vices and license of the Continent. He concludes 
his account of his tour in this way : " I again take God to 
witness that, in all those places where so many things are 



MILTON. 77 

considered lawful, I lived sound and untouched from all 
profligacy and vice ; having this thought perpetually with 
me, that, though I might escape the eyes of men, I cer- 
tainly could not the eyes of God" 

His father had always supported him most generously, 
but he felt that he should now do something for himself. 
He therefore took a handsome house in London, where he 
received his nephews and a few other pupils, " to teach 
them both knowledge and virtue." These boys were 
given hard study and spare diet, but had a great affection 
for their teacher. 

At this time he began his work as a reformer. No 
one can read his writings or study his life, without feeling 
that his first desire was the freedom, and through that, 
the happiness of his country. There was at this time a 
contest between Charles I. and his people, the one to 
extend his power, the other to enlarge their privileges. 
Milton wished for, worked for, and prayed for, a republic. 
His reading of the Bible taught him to defend the op- 
pressed and assail the oppressor, and he wrote boldly in a 
way that made him many enemies. He also aided the 
Puritans in their war against the Established Church, 
which added to his unpopularity. 

His " Treatise on the Reformation " was published in 
1641, which abounds in stirring passages and attempts to 
prove that the prelates of the English Church had ever 
been the foes of liberty, and " that, though at the begin- 
ning they had renounced the Pope, yet they had hugged 
the Popedom, and shared the authority among themselves ; 
by their six bloody articles persecuting the Protestants 
no slacker than the pope would have done." 

In his prose writings there are passages of great poetic 
splendor, and a fiery, fervid spirit breathed through all. 
Macaulay describes his prose as " a perfect field of cloth 
of gold, stiff with gorgeous embroidery." 



78 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

He said himself that in prose he always felt that he 
was writing with his left hand. He was at times too fierce 
and severe, and needed the music of verse to bring out all 
that was bright and beautiful in his nature. 

But. these eloquent sentences do not betray any left- 
handed awkwardness : 

" How the bright and glorious Reformation, by Divine 
power, shone through the black and settled night of igno- 
rance and anti-Christian tyranny ; methinks a sovereign 
and reviving joy must needs rush into the bosom of him 
that reads or hears, and the sweet odor imbue his soul 
with the fragrancy of heaven. Then was the sacred Bible 
brought out of the dusty corners where profane falsehood 
and neglect had thrown it ; the schools opened, Divine 
and human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten 
tongues ; princes and cities trooping apace to the new- 
erected banner of salvation ; the martyrs, with the irre- 
sistible might of weakness, shaking the powers of dark- 
ness, and scorning the fiery rage of the old red dragon. 

" Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation 
rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking 
her invincible locks ; methinks I see her as an eagle muing 
her mighty youth, and kindling her dazzled eyes at the 
full mid-day beam ; purging and unsealing her long-abused 
sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance ; while 
the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those 
also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what 
she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosti- 
cate a year of sects and schisms." 

The " Areopagitica " is Milton's greatest prose work ; 
its theme, the benefits of a free press. 

In his thirty-fifth year he married Mary Powell, the 
daughter of a Cavalier, after a very short courtship, and 
brought her to London. But the young bride, accustomed 
to gay beaux and a house full of people, found her new 



Hilton 79 

life rather irksome. She did not fancy the spare diet and 
the house filled with pupils, and could not endure the 
dulness and restraints of a scholar's life. So, in a few 
weeks after their marriage, she went home on a visit and 
did not return. Milton sent letters and messengers, but 
in vain, until at last he refused to call her his wife any- 
more, and, to defend his conduct, published four treatises 
on the subject of " Divorce." In these he argued in favor 
of polygamy, as allowed in the Old Testament, and no- 
where absolutely forbidden in the New. I wonder that 
he should wish additional vexation, after finding one 
pretty little woman so unruly; but possibly he saw a 
chance of happiness with one tractable spouse among the 
half dozen ! At the close of a year his wife came back, 
and, kneeling in tears at his feet, begged forgiveness, 
which he at last granted, and they managed to live com- 
fortably together. By her he had three daughters, his 
only children that lived. He had three wives (not all at 
one time, however !), the last one surviving him several 
years. 

His eyes grew more and more diseased, and at last 
came total blindness. His enemies regarded this as a 
punishment for writing against the king. He bore this 
great trial with rare fortitude and cheerfulness, as his 
beautiful sonnet on his own blindness will show : 

" When I consider how my light is spent 

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 
And that one talent which is death to hide, 

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
My true account, lest He, returning, chide : 
1 Doth God exact day-labor, light denied ? ' 

I fondly ask : but Patience, to prevent 

That murmur, soon replies, ' God doth not need 

Either man's work, or his own gifts ; who best 

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state 



80 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed, 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest : 
They also serve who only stand and wait." 

But though he had lost his sight, he retained that fear- 
less spirit which never trembled before pope or king. It 
is said that the Duke of York, in the heyday of his honors 
and greatness, went to satisfy a malignant curiosity by 
visiting Milton, and asked him if he did not regard the 
loss of his sight as a judgment for his writing as he had 
done. Milton replied, calmly : " If your highness thinks 
calamity is an indication of Heaven's wrath, how do you 
account for the fate of the king your father ? I have 
lost but my eyes — he lost his head." 

On the duke's return to court, he said to the king, 
" Brother, you are greatly to blame that you don't have 
that old rogue, Milton, hanged." 

" What ! " said' the king, " have you seen Milton ? " 
" Yes," answered the duke, " I have seen him." 
" In what condition did you find him ? " 
" Condition ! Why he is old, and very poor." 
"Old and poor," said the king — "and blind, too? 
You are a fool, James, to have him hanged — it would be 
doing him a service. No; if he is poor, and old, and 
blind, he is already miserable enough, in all conscience. 
Let him live on." 

Milton taught his daughters to pronounce half a dozen 
languages, without understanding the meaning of a word, 
and they read much to him. But, I fear, his home-life was 
far from pleasant. He had very little sympathy with his 
family. His daughters thought it great drudgery to read 
to him, and did not hesitate to say so, and he really suf- 
fered in other ways from their ill-treatment. They would 
sell his books, and advise the servants to cheat him, and 
one of them, when told of her father's intention to marry 



MILTON". 81 

again, said, " that was no news, but if she could hear of 
his death, that would be something.'" 

I can give you a very minute account of the manner 
in which he divided his time during the day : 

" In his latter years he retired every night at nine 
o'clock, and lay till four in summer, till five in winter; 
and, if not disposed then to rise, he had some one to sit at 
his bedside and read to him. When he rose he had a 
chapter of the Hebrew Bible read for him ; and then, with 
of course the intervention of breakfast, he studied till 
twelve. He then dined, took some exercise for an hour— 
generally in a chair, in which he used to swing himself — 
and afterward played on the organ or the bass-viol, and 
either sang himself or made his wife sing, who, as he said, 
had a good voice, but no ear. He then resumed his 
studies till six, from which hour till eight he conversed 
with those who came to visit him. He finally took a light 
supper, smoked a pipe of tobacco, and drank a glass of 
water, after -which he retired to rest:" 

His public work was now done; his cause had been 
defeated, he had been traduced and persecuted. The 
King's power has increased, and he was living in poverty, 
desertion, and disgrace. Yet his voice was unchanged 

" To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days ; 
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues, 
In darkness, and with danger compassed round, 
And solitude ; " — 

the. noble champion of the people's liberty lost not 
" one jot of heart or hope," but forgetting his own wrongs, 
losses, and woes, devoted his time and talents to writing 
his last and greatest poems. Whipple says : " No one can 
fully reverence Milton who has not studied the character 
of the age of Charles II., in which his later fortunes were 
cast. He was Dryden's contemporary in time, but not his 



82 HOME PICTTJEES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

master or disciple in slavishness. He was under the 
anathema of power ; a republican in days of abject 
servility; a Christian among men whom it would be 
charity to call infidels ; a man of pure life and high prin- 
ciple, among sensualists and renegades. On nothing ex- 
ternal could he lean for support. In his own domain of 
imagination perhaps the greatest poet that ever lived, he 
was still doomed to see such pitiful and stupid poetasters 
as Shadwell and Settle bear away the shining rewards of 
letters. Well might he declare that he had fallen on evil 
times ! He was among his opposites, a despised and high- 
souled Puritan poet, surrounded by a horde of desperate 
and dissolute scribblers." 

It is pleasant to know that this sad and blind old man, 
had the consolation of music left him, and to think of him, 
as playing the organ at twilight, adding to its rich tones, 
the music of his own sweet voice. 

Very peacefully, at midnight, on the 8th of November, 
1674, the great Milton closed his tired, sightless eyes, to 
open them in the light of heave*n. He was buried near 
his father, in the chancel of St. Giles. 

" Over his grave, civil and religious liberty clasp 
hands ; science, poesy, and divine philosophy, strew upon 
it garlands as immortal as his name ; while the muse of 
history, dipping her pencil in the sunlight, sculptures, 
through proud tears, the scriptural benediction, 'Well 
done, good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy 
of thy Lord.' " 

" Paradise Lost," the great Christian epic of our lan- 
guage, was chanted at first to but few hearers. Indeed, 
Milton had some difficulty in finding a publisher. The 
poet Waller said : " The old blind schoolmaster, John 
Milton, hath published a tedious poem on the fall of man ; 
if its length be not considered a merit, it has no other." 

It is now acknowledged by all to be one of the sub- 



MILTON. 83 

limest monuments of human genius. Homer, Virgil, Dante, 
and Milton, are the four great evangelists of the human 
mind, each being in some measure the type of his age. 
Homer expresses the mythic epoch ; Virgil sings of the 
State ; Dante is the embodiment of mediaeval Christi- 
anity; Milton, the poet of Protestantism. The "Inferno" 
and " Paradise Lost " are often compared and contrasted. 
It is enough for me to say, that, while Dante describes 
minutely and often repulsively the horrors of the lower 
world, Milton delights in generalizations. He produces 
effect often by what he leaves unsaid, and merely sug- 
gested. 

" Paradise Regained," an inferior epic written in the 
same style, was suggested by the question of a Quaker 
friend, who, after reading the first, said, " Thou hast said 
much here of c Paradise Lost,' but what hast thou to say 
of 'Paradise Found?'" 

I might as well try to give you an idea of the gran- 
deur of Mont Blanc, by showing a few rocks from its 
base, as to hope to impress you with the sublimity of 
these epics by a few quotations. No one can read them 
carefully without being amply repaid. 

To those who, in studying an author's life, like to see 
what were the outward circumstances that influenced his 
character and writings, these remarks of Reed's in regard 
to Milton may be interesting : " The first part of Milton's 
literary life is full of beautiful reflection of the age that 
had gone before ; his genius is then glowing with tints of 
glory cast upon it by the Elizabethan poetry ; the merid- 
ian of it is in close correspondence with the season of the 
power of the Parliament and Protector, when Milton stood 
side by side with Cromwell; and the latter period of it 
has that of sublime and solitary contrast with the times 
of Charles the Second. The first was the genial season of 
youth, studious, pure, and happy ; the second was of ma- 



84 



HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 



ture manhood, strenuous in civil strife, and the dubious 
dynasty of the Protectorate ; the third was old age dark- 
ened, disappointed, but indomitable." 

Milton's enemies are now forgotten, or at best remem- 
bered like the dim shadows of a dream, while his name 
and fame as a poet, scholar, and reformer, will endure 
until all kingdoms and republics have passed away. 




milton's cottage at chalfont. 




DETDEK 



" Dryden, in immortal strain, 
Had raised the table-round again, 
But that a ribald king and court 
Bade him toil on, to make them sport ; 
Demanded for their niggard pay, 
Fit for their souls, a looser lay ; 
The world, defrauded of the high design, 
Profaned the God-given strength, and marred the lofty line." 

Joirtf Drydex, who, after Milton's death, was con- 
sidered the first poet of his time, was born at the parsonage- 
house of Oldwinkle, All-Saints, August 9, 1631. 

Now I could tell you just what Milton liked best for 



86 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

breakfast, and how he often sat, with one leg thrown over 
the arm of his chair, when composing ; but of Dryden's 
daily life we know but little. He belonged to a respect- 
able Puritan family, and was the eldest of fourteen chil- 
dren ; was fitted for college at Westminster, under Dr. 
Busby, of "birchen memory," who, for fifty-five years, 
was at the head of that famous school ; then spent seven 
years at Cambridge, distinguishing himself in no special 
way at either place. These meagre facts are all we have 
to tell of his early days at home, at school, and at college. 

His first poem, written when only seventeen, appeared 
in book form, in 1650, with nearly a hundred other elegies, 
called forth by the sad death of Lord Hastings, " a young 
nobleman of great learning, and much beloved," who was 
a victim of the small-pox on the very eve of his intended 
marriage. 

This juvenile effort was absurd and affected, and 
showed the young poet had but little heart. He raves 
about the pustules, calling them rose-buds and jewels, and 
at last exalts them into stars — 

" No comet need foretell his change drew on, 
Whose corpse might seem a constellation," 

apparently forgetting the sorrow of the mourners, in de- 
light at his own fine verses. But poetry was in a low 
state at this time, and the public taste was " detestable." 
Alliterations, poor puns, and strained allegories, were con- 
sidered fine writing ; it was only natural that Dry den 
should follow the general fashion. 

His family and friends were all stanch Puritans, and 
on his going to London, from the university, he was made 
secretary to Sir Gilbert Pickering, his kinsman, who was 
at that time Lord-Chamberlain of the Protector's house- 
hold. His dress of plain drugget, and his manners, home- 
ly and serious, plainly proved his parentage, and the in- 



DRYDEX. 87 

fluences that surrounded him. As Hannay expresses it, 
" These sable leading-strings were still perceptible in his 
walk." But, with all these, Dryden was not a Puritan at 
heart. To be sure, when Cromwell died, he lamented the 
event in some heroic stanzas ; but only two years after, 
when the merry monarch, Charles II., was welcomed back 
to London, after a disagreeable and rather dangerous ex- 
perience, hiding in haylofts and stable-yards, disguised as a 
servant, to save his worthless life, Dryden approved the re- 
joicings, the big dinners, flags and trumpets, and wrote 
another poem, in the same fulsome strain, celebrating his 
return. 

For this sudden change he has been called a trimmer 
and turn-coat, but has, perhaps, been too severely criti- 
cised. One of his defenders exonerates him in these 
words : " Puritanism is one way of looking at nature, and, 
when sincere, of course, a right worshipful one ; and the 
artistic and literary view of life is' a different one ! A 
man of wit and social sympathies, a lover of the beautiful, 
and a humorist, could not be expected to remain a Puritan. 
There are sacred birds and singing-birds ; trees that utter 
oracles, and trees that produce blossoms and fruit for sum- 
mer afternoons. Young John Dryden followed his bent." 
The next few "years were spent in writing plays, which 
were not especially good, but had just made " a hit," as 
they say, with his drama of the " Indian Emperor," dedi- 
cated to his beautiful patroness, the Duchess of Monmouth, 
when the " Great Plague " broke out in London, and put 
a stop to all theatre-going. 

Ah ! what a sad, sad time in that great city ! More 
than one hundred thousand died from that terrible disease. 
Fires were kept burning night and day in the streets to 
stop the infection, but for four months the pestilence raged. 
In September of the next year, 1666, a fire broke out in a 
baker's shop near London Bridge, which spread and 



88 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

spread, and burned and burned for three days. Dryden 
describes this, and the desperate engagement between the 
Dutch and English fleets. This poem, full of flattery to 
the king, and which boasts of his countrymen's prowess, 
gave him his place among the best poets of the day, but 
caused Milton to decide that Dryden was a rhymer, and 
little more. 

In 1670 he was made poet-laureate and historian to 
the king, which gave him a handsome income. This may 
be considered the most prosperous part of his life. His 
" Essay on Dramatic Poesy," published about this time, 
proves that he could not only write plays, but defend 
them when written. In fact, it was his habit all through 
life to write an elaborate argument in prose or verse to 
explain his position, telling the world what good reasons 
he had for thinking as he did. Having given his time and 
talents to the composing of heroic plays, he assumed that 
the drama was the highest department of poetry ; and, 
because he chose to write in rhyme, he argued that blank 
verse was inappropriate for the drama. Of course, this 
Essay caused a great deal of discussion, few of the poets 
or critics of the time agreeing with Dryden. He, too, after- 
ward changed his mind, and went back to the style sanc- 
tioned by the great dramatists of the Elizabethan era. He 
now engaged to write three plays each year for the king's 
company of players, and they evidently appreciated his tal- 
ents, for, although he really wrote but one instead of three, 
they readily paid him the promised sum. But these plays, 
twenty-eight in all, were written for pay, and to please a 
wicked court, and are now considered coarse and con- 
temptible. There never were such profligate times in 
England as under Charles II., and Dryden lowered him- 
self by following the public taste. He wanted popularity 
and pay, and for this dipped his pen in pollution, and lost 
his self-respect. 






DRYDE^. 89 

Whipple says that poverty has been the most fertile 
source of literary crimes. " Poets are by no means wing- 
less angels, fed with ambrosia plucked from Olympus, or 
manna rained down from heaven ; and men of letters have 
ever displayed the same strange indisposition to starve 
common to other descendants of Adam. The law of sup- 
ply and demand operates in literature as in trade. For 
instance, if a poor poet, rich only in the riches of thought, 
be placed in an age which demands intellectual monstrosi- 
ties, he is tempted to pervert his powers to please the 
general taste. This he must do, or die, and this he should 
rather die than do ; but still, if he hopes to live by his 
products, he must produce what people will buy — and it is 
already supposed that nothing will be bought except what 
is brainless or debasing." 

This is more briefly expressed in the old couplet — 

" The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, 
And they who live to please, must please to live." 

He then mentions Dryden as a pertinent example of 
this truth. " The time in which he lived was one of great 
depravity of taste, and greater depravity of manners. 
Authors seemed banded in an insane crusade to exalt 
blasphemy and profligacy to the vacant throne of piety 
and virtue. Books were valuable according to the wicked- 
ness blended with their talent. Mental power was lucra- 
tive only in its perversion. The public was ravenous for 
the witty iniquities of the brain ; and, to use the energetic 
invective of South, laid hold of brilliant morsels of sin, with 
' fire and brimstone flaming round them, and thus, as it 
were, digested death itself, and made a meal upon perdi- 
tion.' ISTow it is evident, in such a period as this, a needy 
author was compelled to choose between virtue, attended 
by neglect, and vice, lackeyed by popularity. One of Sir 
Charles Sedley's profligate comedies, one of Lord Roches- 



90 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

ter's ribald lampoons, possessed more mercantile value 
than the ' Paradise Lost.' In such a period as this the 
poet should have descended upon his time, like Schiller's 
ideal artist, ' not to delight it with his presence, but terri- 
ble, like the son of Agamemnon, to purify it.' Dry den 
was placed in this age, and, for a long period of his life, 
was its pander and parasite. Yet, had he lived in the 
reign of George III., he would not have been more im- 
moral than Churchill ; had he lived in our day, his muse 
would have been as pure as that of Campbell. He could 
not, or would not, learn that it is better to starve on hon- 
esty than thrive on baseness. It is hard, says an old 
English divine, to maintain truth, but still harder to be 
maintained by it." 

Ridiculed by some of the wits at court, in a way that 
cut him keenly, he turned upon them, with all the terrible 
power of his fierce satire, proving to them and the world 
that his pen could wound as well as flatter. It was in 
1681 that he published his great satirical poem of "Absa- 
lom and Achitophel," in which, under the thin veil of a 
Scriptual story, his enemies, the Duke of Monmouth and 
Shaftesbury, were held up to be ridiculed and scorned. It 
had a most rapid sale, and even the sufferers themselves 
had to own his power. " MacFlecknoe " and the " Medal " 
soon followed. His skill in this kind of " moral portrait- 
painting " is wonderful, and yet every one must regret 
that he wasted his great powers in abusing his envious 
contemporaries. 

It is sad, too, to think of him selling himself to the 
theatre for so many plays a year, when he longed to be 
writing something better ; working for the king, in return 
for a small pension, irregularly paid ; writing any thing 
for pay, prologues, dedications, translations ; yet seldom 
in comfortable circumstances. Listen to his affecting 
memorial addressed at this time to the Earl of Rochester : 



DRYDEN. 91 

"I would plead a little merit, and some hazards -of my 
life from the common enemies; my refusing advantages 
offered by them and neglecting my beneficial studies, for 
the king's service ; but I only think I merit not to starve. I 
never applied myself to any interest contrary to your lord- 
ship's ; and on some occasions, perhaps not known to you, 
have not been unserviceable to the memory and reputation 
of my lord, your father. After this, my lord, my con- 
science assures me, I may write boldly, though I cannot 
speak to you. I have three sons, growing to man's estate. 
I breed them all up to learning, beyond my fortune, but 
they are too hopeful to be neglected, though I want. Be 
pleased to look on me with an eye of compassion. Some 
small employment would render my condition easy. The 
king is not unsatisfied of me; the duke has often prom- 
ised me his assistance ; and your lordship is the conduit 
through which their favors pass. Either in the customs 
or the appeals of the excise, or some other way, means 
cannot be wanting, if you please to have the will. It is 
enough for one age to have neglected Mr. Cowley and 
starved Mr. Butler ; but neither of them had the happi- 
ness to live till your lordship's ministry. In the mean 
time, be pleased to give me a gracious and a speedy answer 
to my present request of half a year's pension for my 
necessities. I am going to write somewhat by his ma- 
jesty's command, and cannot stir into the country for my 
health and studies till I secure my family from want." 

Butler's life of penury and neglect, in contrast with the 
honors paid him after his death, suggested one of the 
best epigrams we have : 

ft Whilst Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, 
No generous patron would a dinner give. 
See him, when starved to death and turned to dust, 
Presented with a monumental bust. 
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown : 
He asked for bread, nnd he received — a stone." 



92 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

The work to which Diyden alludes was the translation 
of a pamphlet written in defence of the English Church 
against the Dissenters, call the "Religio Laici." In 1685, 
King Charles died, and James II., a bigoted papist, took 
his place ; and all who had any thing to hope from the new 
monarch, "hastened in sugared addresses to lament the 
sun which had set, and hail the beams of that which had 
arisen." Dryden, especially, was anxious to secure the 
royal favor. He had received little from the reckless, ex- 
travagant Charles but " the pension of a prince's praise" 
and had no reason to sorrow immoderately. He at once 
wrote his " Threnodia Augustalis," in which, after having 
said all that was decently mournful over the bier of the 
dead, he tuned his lyre to sing in joyful praise of 
James. 

Now the new sovereign, the most cruel of all the Eng- 
lish kings, cared little for verses and much for money, 
and the poet-laureate suffered the loss of his butt of sack, 
which had been given him many years. Dryden knew 
little and cared little about religion, probably being rather 
skeptical at this time ; he did care for the wine, and did 
not wish to lose his pension, so he thought it prudent to 
become a papist. This was considered more politic than 
pious, by his enemies at least. As usual, he defended his 
opinions, this time in a poetical fable, which exhibited 
the beasts talking theology in a very able way. This he 
called "The Hind and the Panther." The Church of 
England is represented by the Panther, beautiful, but 
spotted, and the milk-white Hind is the Church of Rome. 
He speaks thus of the Church he had so lately defended : 

" The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind, 
The fairest creature of the spotted kind, 
Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away, 
She were too good to be a beast of prey, — 
How can I praise or blame, and not offend ; 
Or how divide the frailty from the friend ? 



DRYDEN. 93 

Her faults and virtues lie so mixed, that she 
Nor wholly stands condemned, nor wholly free." 

The Bear and the Wolf figured as Presbyterians and 
Independents; and various other animals made up the 
assembly. These learned quadrupeds go to drink at the 
common brook, and, while wagging their tails and licking 
their jaws, have long discussions over the merits of their 
'different faiths. But this very singular plot is atoned for 
by the beauty of the verse, and affords a fine specimen of 
Dryden's most prominent quality, his power of reasoning 
in rhyme. 

James was delighted with his new ally, and added one 
hundred pounds to his pension, besides restoring the wine ; 
but the revolution of 1688 robbed him of his place, and 
he was forced once more to write for bread. 

Hannay, his enthusiastic defender, says that "the 
cause of all his embarrassments was, that he took up litera- 
ture as a profession. He was a man of very good family 
and connections ; and if he had sold himself to making 
money, the way to do it was surely open enough. Only 
his instinct made him improve the English language. He 
would 



"jom 

The varying verse, the full resounding line, 
The long majestic march and energy divine " — 

and he would follow his intellectual instinct ! Of course 
he had a penalty to pay for his independence and his im- 
mortality." 

He now took some of Chaucer's charming tales, which 
were seldom read, because few cared to puzzle their brains 
over the old English, and translated them pleasantly, 
though increasing rather than diminishing the coarseness 
which clung to them. 

He also translated " Virgil," a work for which he was 



91 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

not suited and which he did not enjoy, and this heavy 
task occupied three years. But, although he failed to 
transfuse into his version the life and soul of the great 
Latin epic, he has given us a translation still read and 
admired, as good as any that has ever been attempted. 

The "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day," one of the noblest 
lyrics in our language, was one of his last efforts, and in 
some respects the best. * Scott gives the following anec- 
dote in regard to the short time in which this ode was 
written : 

" Mr. St. John, afterward Lord Bolingbroke, happen- 
ing to pay a morning visit to Dryden, whom he always 
respected, found him in an unusual agitation of spirits, 
even to a trembling. On inquiring the cause, ' I have 
been up all night,' replied the old bard. ' My musical 
friends made me promise to write them an ode for their 
feast of St. Cecilia ; I have been so struck with the sub- 
ject which occurred to me, that I could not leave it till I 
had completed it ; here it is, finished at one sitting. And 
immediately he showed him this ode, which places the 
British lyric poetry above that of any other nation. ' " 

Handel, the great composer, set it to music, and it was 
performed in the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, with 
great applause. It is rare to find such talents combined. 

Dryden seemed to have no mean opinion of his own 
production. He says, in writing to his publisher : " I am 
glad to hear from all hands that my ode is esteemed the 
best of all my poetry, by all the town. I thought so 
myself when I writ it ; but being old I mistrusted my 
own judgment." 

And when a young friend congratulated him on having 
produced the finest ode ever written in any language, he 
replied, " You are right, young gentleman ; a nobler ode 
never teas produced, nor ever icill!" 

Some of its lines have almost become proverbs, such as : 



DRYDEST. 95 

" None but the brave deserve the fair." 

" Sweet is pleasure after pain." 

" For pity melts the mind to love." 

" Take the goods the gods provide thee." 

" War, he sung, is toil and trouble ; 
Honor, but an empty bubble." 

" He raised a mortal to the skies, 
She drew an angel down." 

He died a poor, 'neglected man, notwithstanding his 
many changes and abject flattery, leaving, this life on 
Wednesday morning, the 1st of May, 1700. He died in 
the Roman Catholic faith, to which he had ever been true, 
full of resignation to the divine will, " taking of his friends 
so tender and obliging a farewell as none but he himself 
could have expressed." 

" The death of a man like Dry den, especially in narrow 
and neglected circumstances, is usually an alarum-bell to 
the public. Unavailing and mutual reproaches, for un- 
thankful and pitiful negligence, waste themselves in news- 
paper paragraphs, elegies, and funeral processions; the 
debt to genius is then deemed discharged, and a new ac- 
count of neglect and commemoration is opened between 
the public and the next who rises to supply his room. It 
was thus with Dryden. His family were preparing to 
bury him with the decency becoming their limited circum- 
stances, when Charles Montagu, Lord Jeffries, and other 
men of quality, made a subscription for a public funeral. 
The body of the poet was then removed to the Physicians' 
Hall, where it was embalmed, and lay in state till the 13th 
day of May, twelve days after the decease. On that day 
the celebrated Dr. Garth pronounced a Latin oration over 
the remains of his departed friend, which were then, with 
considerable state, preceded by a band of music, and 
5 



96 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

attended by a numerous procession of carriages, trans- 
ported to Westminster Abbey, and deposited between 
the graves of Chaucer and Cowley." 

Let us now go back and look at his private life. We 
know that he was a shy, handsome boy, fond of history 
and the classics, a great reader, and devoted to the old 
English ballads. We see him next as a gallant at court, 
for whose sake 

" The blushing virgins died," 

or, giving up the hope of fascinating the gay Lothario, 
retired to a nunnery. This of course is poetical exaggera- 
tion, for, however handsome he may have been, he was 
always diffident and talked but little. I am glad he 
enjoyed those early days, for he soon learned the sad 
truth, that " life is a strife" in his own home, as well as 
with his literary rivals. At the age of thirty-two, he 
married the Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the 
Earl of Berkshire. She was proud and odd and ill-tem- 
pered, quarrelling with his relations and her own, making 
him very wretched. Dryden was always very severe on 
matrimony, and no wonder. Here is an epitaph said to be 
his, written perhaps as a little relief to his feelings after 
one of their conjugal squabbles : 

" Here lies my wife, 
Here let her lie ; 
Now she's at rest, 
And so am Z" 

But we should have some sympathy for the poor 
woman, for her eccentricities terminated in insanity, and 
her last years were spent in an asylum. 

Dryden was never a great talker; one of his critics 
writes for him : 

" Nor wine nor love could ever see me gay ; 
To writing bred, I knew not what to say." • 



DRYDEN. 97 

and he has himself very honestly told us : "My conver- 
sation is dull and slow ; my humor is saturnine and 
reserved ; in short, I am not one of those who endeavor to 
break jest in company or make repartees." 

Neither did he seem to be an epicure. Writing to a 
lady, declining her invitation to a handsome supper, he 
said : " If beggars might be chosers, a chine of honest 
bacon would please my appetite more than all the mar- 
row puddings — for I like them better plain, having a very 
vulgar stomach." Can't you imagine just how Madam 
Dryden, fault-finding and foolishly aristocratic, turned up 
her patrician nose, if she saw that note ? She must have 
been visiting some of her titled friends at that time, for, 
if she had been at home, no doubt her husband would 
have gone meekly to the fine dinner and the marrow pud- 
ding. His looks, in later years, belied his temperate 
tastes, for he grew so corpulent that his enemies called 
him the " Poet Squab ; " and his eyes', that had once done 
such execution among the court beauties, grew sleepy and 
sunken, while his whole face assumed a florid hue that did 
not add to his beauty. 

His happiest hours were spent at Will's Coffee-House, 
the great resort of the wits of the town, where he had the 
royal seat, and his snuffbox was "the fountain of honor." 
"He was the great literary lion of his day; and -no 
country stranger of any taste for letters, thought his 
round of London sights complete, unless he had been to 
Will's Coffee-House in Russell Street, where, ensconced in 
a snug arm-chair by the fire, or on the balcony, according 
to the season, old John sat, pipe in hand,* laying down 
the law upon disputed points in literature or poli- 
tics." 

I am afraid that Dryden grew weary of temperance in 
these days, and that his rubicund visage was owing to his 
habits, for, during the last ten years of his life, he used to 



98 HOME PICTUEE8 OF ENGLISH POETS. 

drink to excess with Addison and others, shortening his 
days, it is said, in this way. 

When I think of his rare talents, and the way in which 
he wasted and degraded them, for the sake of popularity 
with that wicked court, which never repaid him, I cannot 
but wish his life had been more like that other " old John" 
who lived in the same city with him, for nearly fifty 
years ; that noble poet we talked of last, the blind Milton, 
neglected but unconquered, who would rather have gone 
to the stake than shown any sympathy with the follies 
and vices of his day. 

That Dry den admired and appreciated his genius, 
though he did not adopt his morals, is seen from the fol- 
lowing tribute, in which he places Milton above Homer 
and Virgil : 

" Three poets, in three distant ages born, 
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn : 
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, 
The next in majesty, in both the last. 
The force of Nature could no further go — 
To make a third, she joined the other two." 

I think he saw his mistake when it was too late, and we 
are more ready to pity than blame when we read a sad 
strain like this, so full of vain regret : 

" If joys hereafter must be purchased here, 
With loss of all that mortals hold so dear, 
Then welcome infamy, and public shame, 
And last, a long farewell to worldly fame ! 
'Tis said with ease ; but oh, how hardly tried, 
By haughty souls, to human honor tied ! 
Oh, sharp, convulsive pangs of agonizing pride ! 
Down then, thou rebel, never more to rise ! 
And what thou didst, and dost so dearly prize, 
That fame, that darling fame, make that thy sacrifice. 
'Tis nothing thou hast given, then add thy tears 
For a long race of unrepenting years. 



DEYDEX. 99 

'Tis nothing yet, yet all thou hast to give, 

Then add those maybe years thou hast to live. 

'Tis nothing still ; then poor and naked come, 

Thy Father will receive His unthrift home, 

And thy blest Saviour's blood discharge the mighty sin." 

He once spoke very frankly of his strong desire for 
fame, adding: "For what other reason have I spent my 
life in so unprofitable a study ? Why am I grown old in 
seeking so barren a reward as fame ? The same parts and 
application which have made me a poet, might have 
raised me to any honors of the gown." 

His old age was far from happy ; he was desolate, poor, 
and obliged to write on distasteful subjects in a mechanical 
way for daily support. 

His habits of composing were very rapid, and he sel- 
dom pruned or corrected ; his complete works are greater 
than those of any English poet. 

When working hard over his translation of Virgil, he 
writes to his bookseller about his son, an invalid, who 
would soon return from Rome : " If it please God that I 
must die of over-study, I cannot spend my life better 
than in preserving his." 

But light mingled with the clouds in these sunset 
days, and here is a pleasant story to prove it : Dry den 
was sjDending the evening with some friends, when their 
conversation happened to be directed to the subject of 
the art of composition, elegant style, etc. So it was 
agreed that each should write something, and place it 
under the candlestick for the poet's criticism. Most of the 
company labored hard, while Lord Dorset, with much 
composure, wrote two or three lines, and carelessly threw 
them to the place agreed on. The rest having finished, 
the arbiter raised the candlestick and opened the leaves 
of their destiny. In going through the whole, he dis- 
covered strong marks of pleasure and satisfaction, but at 



100 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

one, in particular, he seemed in raptures. "I must ac- 
knowledge," said he, "that there are abundance of fine 
things in my hands, and such as do honor to the person- 
ages who wrote them ; but I am under an indispensable 
necessity of giving the highest preference to my Lord 
Dorset. I must request that your lordships will hear it, 
and I believe all will be satisfied with my judgment : 
' 1 promise to pay John Dryden or order, on demand, the 
sum of five hundred pounds. Dorset.' " 

Dryden's life cannot be considered a failure, though 
even his warmest friends must regard it with " respectful 
sorrow." Talents so great as his cannot be concealed by 
faults of character, or grossness of style. He was a fine 
reasoner, an able critic, and possessed a wonderful power 
over language. 

Johnson, who was always partial in his opinions, called 
him the " Father of Criticism," and said, in describing his 
style, that he did for the English language what Augustus 
did for Rome — " found it brick and left it marble." 

No one can help regretting that he did not carry out 
his favorite plan of composing an epic poem on King 
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the same 
subject which Milton once thought of attempting. With 
such a theme, he would have given us something worthy 
of his genius. 

I must give you a few more lines from his works, just 
as they happen to gtrike me in running them over, that 
you may see how lavishly he scattered gems of thought 
before that good-for-nothing court — literally casting his 
" pearls before swine : " 

" Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 
And thin partitions do their bounds divide." 

" But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand, 
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land." 



DETDE^. 101 

" Beware the fury of a patient man." 

" He trudged along, unknowing what he sought, 
And whistled as he went, for want of thought.'' 

" Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow ; 
He who would search for pearls, must dive below." 

" Men are but children of a larger growth." 

" But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be ; 
Within that circle, none durst walk but he." 

" Forgiveness to the injured does belong ; 
But they ne'er pardon, who have done the wrong." 

" This is the porcelain clay of human kind." 

u Time gives himself and is not valued." 

u Death in itself is nothing ; but we fear 
To be we know not what, we know not where," 

" Love either finds equality, or makes it" 

41 That bad thing, gold, buys all good things." 

" The secret pleasure of the generous act, 
Is the great mind's great bribe." 

u Few know the use of life, before 'tis past." 

a When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat, 
Yet, fooled with hope, men favor the deceit ; 
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay; 
To-morrow's falser than the former day ; 
Lies worse ; and while it says, l We shall be blest 
With some new joys,' cuts off what we possessed, 
Strange courage ! none would live past years again, 
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; 
And from the dregs of life think to receive . 
What the first sprightly running could not give." 

" Of no distemper, of no blast he died, 
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long; 
Even wondered at, because he dropt no sooner. 



102 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years, 
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more ; 
Till, like a clock worn out with calling time, 
The wheels of weary life — at last stood still." 

He was very ready in extempore composition. Talk- 
ing one day at his friend's, Mrs. Creed's, upon the origin 
of names and their significance, he bowed to the good old 
lady, and recited this impromptu : 

" So much religion in your name doth dwell, 
Your soul must needs with piety excel. 
Thus names, like well-wrought pictures drawn of old, 
Their owner's nature and their story told. 
Your name but half expresses ; for in you 
Belief and practice do together -go. 
My prayers shall be, while this short life endures, 
These may go hand in hand, with you and yours ; 
Till faith hereafter is in vision drowned, 
And practice is with endless glory crowned." 

His assertion that he was not good at repartee, is 
certainly disproved by his witty reply to his wife, who, in 
a good-humored mood, wished that she might be a book, 
and so enjoy more of his com p any : 

" Be an almanac, then, my dear, 
That I may change you once a year ! " 

Lowell, in a recent North American, has an able criti- 
cism of Dryden, from which I will copy a few sentences : 

" In the second class of English poets, perhaps no one 
stands, on the whole, so high as he ; during his lifetime, in 
spite of jealousy, detraction, unpopular politics, and a 
suspicious change of faith, his preeminence was conceded ; 
he was the earliest complete type of the purely literary 
man, in the modern sense ; there is a singular unanimity in 
allowing him a certain claim to greatness^ which would be 
denied to men as famous and more read; to Pope or 



DRYDETtf. 



103 



Swift, for example ; he is supposed, in some way or other, 
to have reformed English poetry." 

I cannot better close this rambling talk than by quot- 
ing the words of his biographer, Scott, at the close of his 
work : 

" I have thus detailed the life and offered some remarks 
on the literary character of John Dryden, who, educated 
in a pedantic taste, and a fanatical religion, was destined, 
if not to give laws to the stage of England, at least to 
defend its liberties ; to improve burlesque into satire, to 
free translation from the fetters of verbal metaphrase, and 
exclude it from the license of paraphrase; to teach 
posterity the powerful and varied harmony of which their 
language was capable ; to give an example of the lyric 
ode of unapproached excellence ; and to leave to English 
literature a name second only to those of Milton and 
Shakespeare." 




BURLEIGH HOUSE. 




O^ c^^O^Z^ 



ADDISOK 



11 He taught us how to live, and oh too high 
The price for knowledge I taught us how to die. 1 



On the 1st of May, 1672, in the house of a Wiltshire 
dean, could be heard the cries of a little babe, so feeble 
and puny that it was christened on the day of its birth, 
no one daring to hope for its life. This delicate child be- 
came a man whom I want you all to love and admire, for 
his name, given in such sad haste by anxious friends, 
became one of the brightest and purest in English litera- 
ture. Joseph Addison's early life was passed at his 
father's rectory, and of those days we know but little. 
There is a story which makes him ringleader in a " barring 



ADDISON. 105 

out," which was a mad, impudent frolic of the boys at the 
close of a term, when they thought it great fun to lock 
the doors and bar the windows of the school-room, and 
then jeer and sneer at the poor master standing outside. 
Another tradition assures us that he once ran away from 
school to escape a whipping, and hid himself in a wood, 
where he fed on berries,, and slept in a hollow tree, until, 
after a long search, he was discovered and brought home. 




BIRTHPLACE OF ADDISON. 



It is hard to believe that so gentle and retiring a man 
was ever a mutinous runaway, and, whatever his pranks 
may have been, he must have studied well, for at fifteen 
he was a fine Latin scholar, and fitted for the university. 
Tiekell says : " He employed his first years in the study 
of the old Greek and Roman writers, whose language 
and manner he caught at that time of life as strongly as 
other young people gain a French accent or a genteel air." 
It was at the Charter-house School in London that he met 
Richard Steele, " a good-hearted, mischief-loving Irish 
boy," with whom he ever after kept up a warm friendship. 
Addison's father also liked this frank and lively lad, and 
approved of the intimacy. Steele, in writing to Congreve, 



106 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

says : " Were things of this nature to be exposed to 
public view, I could show, under the dean's own hand, in 
the warmest terms, his blessing on the friendship between 
his son and me ; nor had he a child who did not prefer me 
in the first place of kindness and esteem, as their father 
loved me like one of them." 

They were also together at Oxford, and no doubt their 
very opposite temperaments had a happy effect upon each 
other, Addison being as shy, studious, and quiet, as Steele 
was lazy, reckless, and uproarious. After two years of hard 
study, Addison gained a scholarship in Magdalen, from 
the superiority of his Latin verses. I have nothing to tell 
you of his life there, but that he was very nervous, that 
he kept late hours, and that most of his studies were after 
dinner, a circumstance which, as Miss Aiken observes, is 
pretty conclusive of the sobriety of his habits at this 
period. A grove at Magdalen still retains the name of 
" Addison's Walk," and some of its trees are said to have 
been planted by him. 

At the age of twenty-two he published his first poem, 
some verses addressed to Dryden, which won for him the 
friendship of that poet at the outset of his career. Dryden, 
now a poor old man, whose life was imbittered with keen 
disappointments and vain regret, was pleased by the ex- 
travagant flattery, which congratulated him on having 
" heightened the majesty of Virgil, given new charms to 
Horace, lent to Persius smoother numbers and a clearer 
style, and set a new edge on the satire of Juvenal." But 
the veteran poet fully reciprocated this fulsome praise in 
a postscript to the translation of " The iEneid," where he 
" affected to be afraid that his own performance w6uld not 
sustain a comparison with the version of the fourth Geor- 

gic by the most ingenious Mr. Addison, of Oxford 

After his bees," said Dryden, " my latter swarm is scarcely 
worth the hiving." 



ADDISON. 107 

Addison's father wished hini to be a clergyman, and 
he would have entered the clerical profession if Lords 
Somers and Montagu had not used their powerful influ- 
ence in another direction. They decided that talent and 
principle were sadly needed in the service of the country, 
too often disgraced by their diplomatists, and that the 
State could not spare such a young man to the Church. 
He was therefore given by his friends to the service of the 
crown. His second poem was on the king, and addressed 
to Lord Somers. His majesty and the keeper of the seals 
seemed gratified by this attention, and he soon received 
the solid reward of a pension of three hundred pounds, 
which enabled him to travel in Italy and France, and gain 
a knowledge of the French language, which was indispen- 
sable in the position for which he was destined. He made 
this foreign experience very useful to himself and pleasant 
to others by his notes of travel, and his habit of observing 
manners, society, scenery, etc., which made him so apt 
and attractive a critic at home. He travelled, as all 
should do, with eyes wide open, his mind ready to receive 
new impressions, and, pen in hand, to jot down all 
facts worthy of comment. He also became acquainted 
with many persons of rank and learning while on the Con- 
tinent, and really gained a very high reputation abroad 
before he was known or talked of in his own country. 
Such men as Boileau and Malebranche received him with 
distinguished favor, and he formed a delightful friendship 
with Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu, who afterward mar- 
ried the witty and accomplished Lady Mary, whose letters 
you have no doubt enjoyed. But the Muses were the only 
ladies whose acquaintance he cultivated just then, and he 
devoted himself earnestly to study, feeling, as he said in 
his letter to his patron, that the only return he could make 
his lordship would be to apply himself entirely to his busi- 
ness, which was acquiring the French language. He ex- 



108 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

presses the difficulties lie has met with in one of his letters 
home : " I should have went to Italy before now had not 
y e French tongue stopt me, which has bin a Rub in my 
way harder to get over than y e Alps ; but I hope y e next 
time I have y e honor to wait on you I shall be able to talk 
with you in y e language of y e place." He published an 
account of his tour, and his poetical epistle to his good 
friend Montagu, now Lord Halifax, is considered his best 
effort in verse. I will give you a few lines from this : 

"Poetic fields encompass me around, 
And still I seem to tread on classic ground ; 
For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung, 
" That not a mountain rears its head unsung ; 
Renowned in verse, each shady thicket grows, 
And every stream in heavenly numbers flows/' 

I believe the phrase "classic ground" made its debut 
in this poem, and it is by no means the only happy expres- 
sion which Addison has given us. Listen to the long sigh 
which follows his glowing description of Italy : 

" How has kind Heaven adorned the happy land, 
And scattered blessings with a wasteful hand ! 
But what avails her unexhausted stores, 
Her blooming mountains and her sunny shores, 
With all the gifts that heaven and earth impart, 
The smiles of Nature and the charms of art ; 
While proud Oppression in her valleys reigns, 
And Tyranny usurps her happy plains ? 
The poor inhabitants behold in vain 
The redd'ning orange and the swelling grain ; 
Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines, 
And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines ; 
Starves, in the midst of Nature's bounty curst, 
And in the loaded vineyard dies for thirst." 

With "William's death Addison's patron lost his office, 
and he lost his pension. Thrown upon hft own resources, he 



ADDISON. 109 

determined to continue his travels as tutor to some young 
gentleman on the grand tour, and yery soon the pompous 
Duke of Somerset proposed that he should accompany his 
son in that capacity. This was a pleasant plan, but his 
grace seemed to consider the honor of such association 
sufficient remuneration, or at any rate offered a very small 
salary, which Mr. Addison declined, and the affair ended. 
The state of things at home was not encouraging — his 
promised position gone, his party unpopular, his pension 
taken away, and old debts still unpaid at Oxford. So our 
philosophic scholar did not hasten his return, and enjoyed 
a long and circuitous homeward route with a merry party 
of friends. 

He writes from Holland to Mr. Wyche, an accom- 
plished gentleman and diplomatist of some note, to thank 
him for some wine, the excellence of which he seemed to 
have fully tested : 

"Dear Sir: My hand at present begins to grow 
steady enough for a letter,- so that y e properest use I can 
put it to is to thank y e honest gentleman that set it a 
shaking. I have had this morning a desperate design in 
my head to attack you in verse, which I should certainly 
have done could I have found out a Rhime to Rummer. But 
tho' you have escaped for y e present, you are not yet out 
of danger, if I can a little recover my talent at Crambo. 
I am sure, in whatever way I write to you, it will be im- 
possible for me to express y e deep sense I have of y e many 
favours you have lately shown me. I shall only tell you 
that Hambourg has bin the pleasantest stage I have met 
with in my Travails. If any of my friends wonder at me 
for living so long in that place, I dare say it will be 
thought a very good excuse when I tell 'em Mr. Wyche 
was there. As your company made our stay at Ham- 
bourg agreeable, your wine has given us all y e satisfaction 
that we have found in our journey through Westphalia. 



110 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

If drinking your health will do you any good, you may 
expect to be as long-lived as Methuselah, or, to use a more 
familiar instance, as y e oldest Hoc in y e cellar ;" and so 
forth. You see there is too much of the air o± the " morn- 
ing after " in this grateful and complimentary note. 

Lack of funds at last drove him home, and he reached 
England in the summer of 1703. He was most cordially 
received on his return, and introduced at once to the 
famous " Kit-Cat Club," of which he soon became the pride 
and ornament. This club, a distinguished assemblage 
of the brightest stars of the Whig party, nobles, diplo- 
matists, and men of letters, originated in 1700, in rather an 
humble way. Mr. Jacob Tonson, a celebrated bookseller 
of London, was remarkably fond of certain nice dishes, 
prepared by a pastry cook in Gray's Inn's Lane — particu- 
larly of his mutton-pics. He induced him to move to the 
Fountain Tavern, in the Strand, with promises of better 
patronage. Tonson knew the authors of the day, and 
one day invited some of them to an entertainment at the 
pastry cook's. They, too, were charmed with the mutton- 
pies, and the bookseller offered to repeat the collation each 
week, if he might publish their productions. The cook's 
name was Christopher ; his sign, " The Cat and Fiddle," 
hence the quaint name of the club. Horace Walpole 
says that " its members included not only the wits of the 
time, but the patriots that saved Britain." There Addi- 
son was happy and at home. Reticent and reserved, he 
never appeared to such advantage as when " thawed by 
wine," and surrounded by a group of admiring friends. 
Coleridge says : " You know that some men are like mu- 
sical glasses ; to produce their finest tones, you must keep 
them wet" Thte bad habit of using wine to conquer his 
natural timidity, led him to excess in drinking, a fault all 
the more noticeable, because his character in every other 
respect was so pure and spotless. Macaulay says, in re- 



ADDISON. Ill 

gard to this failing, that " the smallest speck is seen on a 
white ground, and of any other statesman or writer of 
Queen Anne's reign, we should no more think of saying 
that he sometimes took too much wine, than that he wore 
a long wig and sword." 

I will not go into particulars of the many public 
offices held by Addison, which never agreed with his 
literary tastes, and for which he was not especially suited ; 
his fame being chiefly due to his charming essays, which 
were published in the Spectator, a little paper devoted to 
good-humored criticisms on the manners and morals of the 
day. In the spring of 1709, Addison's old school-fellow, 
the generous, genial, good-for-nothing Steele, had started 
a little sheet, called The Tailer, which, for one penny, 
gave a short article, and some scraps of news. Three 
times a week this paper appeared, something entirely new 
in England ; and Addison, who was then in Ireland, would 
occasionally write for it. But the Spectator soon took its 
place, a larger and more ambitious sheet. Here Steele 
and Addison worked together, determined to do some- 
thing to refine and correct the habits of the times. And, 
indeed, a reform was needed, for the state of society 
was very corrupt. Gambling, drunkenness, swearing, and 
indecency of language, were indulged in by too many of 
the so-called " fine gentlemen " of that reign. Bull-rings 
and cockpits were more attractive than books; and a 
reader must needs be a pedant, while any knowledge 
among women, excepting on the topics of dress and flir- 
tation, was ridiculed and censured. The plan of these 
friends succeeded wonderfully, and their paper, which 
came out two or three times a week, was eagerly looked 
for, and read by thousands — circulating through every 
part of the kingdom, the delight of the learned, the busy, 
the idle. It did not fail to reach those for whom it was 
especially intended. " On the tray, beside the delicate 



112 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

porcelain cups, from which beauty and beau sipped their 
fragrant chocolate or tea, by the toilet-table in the late 
noonday, lay the welcome little sheet of sparkling wit, 
or elegant criticism, giving a new zest to the morning 
meal, and suggesting fresh topics for the afternoon chat 
in the toyshop or on the mall." These witty papers, over- 
flowing with good-natured satire, produced more effect than 
any amount of dull moral lectures. Ridicule is often better 
than a sermon, when reproof is needed. Although we owe 
the origin of this style of periodical literature to Steele, 
who wrote delightfully himself, yet Addison was the soul 
and life of the Spectator, and his style is still considered 
a model of pure, elegant English. Steele appreciated his 
friend, and was always grateful — never jealous. " I 
fared," he says, " like a distressed prince, who calls in a 
powerful neighbor to his aid ; I was undone by my auxili- 
ary ; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist 
without dependence on him." And again : " I rejoiced in 
being excelled ; and made those little talents, whatever 
they are, which I have, give way and be subservient to 
the superior qualities of a friend whom I loved, and whose 
modesty would never have admitted them to come into 
daylight, but under such a shelter." 

Addison's papers are marked with one of the four let- 
ters, C. L. I. O., taken either from the Muse's name, or 
from the initial letters of Chelsea, London, Islington, and 
the Office where they were written. Among the articles 
most quoted to illustrate his delicate yet genuine humor, 
are those on " The Use of a Fan," " The Dissection of a 
Beau's Head," and a " Coquette's Heart." You will find 
them very amusing. I give you the first-mentioned, to 
tempt you to look up the others : 
" Mr. Spectator : 

" Women are armed with fans as men with swords, 
and sometimes do more execution with them. To the end, 



ADDISON. 113 

therefore, that ladies may be entire mistresses of the weap- 
on which they bear, I have erected an academy for the 
training up of young women in the exercise of the fan, 
according to the most fashionable airs and motions that are 
now practised at court. The ladies who carry fans under 
me are drawn up twice a day in my great hall, where they 
are instructed in the use of their arms, and exercised by 
the following words of command : Handle your fans, Un- 
furl your fans, Discharge your fans, Ground your fans, 
Recover your fans, Flutter your fans. By the right ob- 
servation of these few plain words of command, a woman 
of a tolerable genius, who will apply herself diligently to 
her exercise for the space of but one half-year, shall be 
able to give her fan all the graces that can possibly enter 
into that little modish machine. 

" But to the end that my readers may form to them- 
selves a right notion of this exercise, I beg leave to explain 
it to them in all its parts. When my female regiment is 
drawn up in array, with every one her weapon in her hand, 
upon my giving the word to Handle their fans, each of them 
stakes her fan at me with a smile, then gives her right- 
hand woman a tap upon the shoulder, then presses her 
lips with the extremity of her fan, then lets her arms fall 
in easy motion, and stands in readiness to receive the next 
word of command. All this is done with a close fan, and 
is generally learned in the first week. 

" The next motion is that of unfurling the fan, in which 
are comprehended several little flirts and vibrations, as 
also gradual and deliberate openings, with many volun- 
tary fallings asunder in the fan itself, that are seldom 
learned under a month's practice. This part of the exer- 
cise pleases the spectators more than any other, as it dis- 
covers, on a sudden, an infinite number of cupids, garlands, 
altars, birds, beasts, rainbows, and the like agreeable 



114 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

figures, that display themselves to view, whilst every one 
in the regiment holds a picture in her hand. 

" Upon my giving the word to Discharge their fans, 
they give one general crack, that may be heard at a con- 
siderable distance, when the wind sits fair. This is one of 
the most difficult parts of the exercise, but I have several 
ladies with me, who at their first entrance could not give 
a pop loud enough to be heard at the farther end of the 
room, who can now discharge a fan in such a manner that 
it shall make a report like a pocket-pistol. I have likewise 
taken care (in order to hinder young women from letting 
off their fans in wrong places, or on unsuitable occasions) 
to show upon what subject the crack of a fan may come in 
properly : I have likewise invented a fan, with which a 
girl of sixteen, by the help of a little wind, which is en- 
closed about one of the largest sticks, can make as loud a 
crack as a woman of fifty with an ordinary fan. 

" When the fans are thus discharged, the word of 
command, in course, is to Ground their fans. This teaches 
a lady to quit her fan gracefully when she throws it aside 
in order to take up a pack of cards, adjust a curl of hair, 
replace a falling pin, or apply herself to any other matter 
of importance. This part of the exercise, as it only con- 
sists in tossing a fan with an air upon a long table (which 
stands by for that purpose),- may be learned in two days' 
time as well as in a twelvemonth. 

" When my female regiment is thus disarmed, I gener- 
ally let them walk about the room for some time ; when, 
on a sudden (like ladies that look upon their watches after 
a long visit), they all of them hasten to, their arms, catch 
them up in a hurry, and place themselves in their proper 
stations upon my calling out, Recover your fans. This 
part of the exercise is not difficult, provided a woman 
applies her thoughts to it. 

" The fluttering of the fan is the last, and indeed the 



ADDISOX. 115 

master-piece of the whole exercise ; but if a lady does not 
mis-spend her time, she may make herself mistress of it in 
three months. I generally lay aside the dog-days and the 
hot time of the summer for the teaching this part of the 
exercise ; for as soon as ever I pronounce, Flutter your 
-fans, the place is filled with so many zephyrs and gentle 
breezes as are very refreshing in that season of the year, 
though they might be dangerous to ladies of a tender con- 
stitution in any other. 

" There is an infinite variety of motions to be made 
use of in the flutter of a fan. There is the angry flutter, 
the modest flutter, the timorous flutter, the confused flut- 
ter, the merry flutter, and the amorous flutter. Not to be 
tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the mind which 
does not produce a suitable agitation in the fan ; insomuch 
. that, if I only see the fan of a disciplined lady, I know very 
well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen 
a fan so very angry, that it would have been dangerous 
for the absent lover who provoked it to have come within 
the wind of it ; and at other times so very languishing, 
that I have been glad, for the lady's sake, the lover was 
at a sufficient distance from it. I need not add that a fan 
is either a prude or a coquette, according to the nature of 
the person who bears it. To conclude my letter, I must 
acquaint you that I have from my own observations com- 
piled a little treatise for the use of my scholars, entitled, 
' The Passions of the Fan,' which I will communicate to 
you if you think it may be of use to the public. I shall 
have a general review on Thursday next, to which you 
shall be very welcome if you will honor it with your pres- 
ence. I am, etc. 

" P. S. I teach young gentlemen the whole art of gal- 
lanting a fan. 

" N". B. I have several little plain fans made for this 
use, to avoid expense." 



116 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

But better than all is the character of " Sir Roger de 
Coverley" — a fine specimen of the old English gen- 
tleman, simple-hearted, generous, and eccentric. He 
was really attached to this creation of his own genius, 
saying, " We are born for each other," and, fearful that 
some other hand might treat the foibles of the worthy 
knight with less love and tenderness than his own, gently 
hurried him from the world. He deserves our praise for 
not only discerning Milton's genius in that age when pinch- 
beck was more valued than gold, but for compelling the 
public to agree with him. He says : " Milton's chief talent, 
and, indeed, his distinguishing excellence, lies in the sub- 
limity of his thoughts. There are others of the modern 
who rival him in every other part of poetry ; but in the 
greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, 
both modern and ancient, Homer alone excepted. It is 
impossible for the imagination of man to disturb itself 
with greater ideas than those which he has laid together 
in his first, second, and sixth books." 

In the spring of 1713, the play of "Cato," which had 
been lying in his desk since his return from Italy, because 
he shrank from the disgrace of a possible failure, was 
brought out at Drury Lane, with immense success, played 
without interruption for thirty-five nights, and only stop- 
ped then because one of the principal actors was ill. This 
tragedy was translated into most of the modern languages, 
but is not read now, being too stately and formal for 
popularity. The celebrated Booth, then a young man, 
made his fortune by his skilful rendition of the part of 
Cato. 

Though this play, as a whole, is forgotten, yet some 
of its lines are often quoted. For instance : 

" 'Tis not in mortals to command success, 
But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it."* 



ADDISON. 117 

" A day, an hour of virtuous liberty, 
Is worth a whole eternity of bondage." 

" The woman that deliberates is lost." 

" 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us. 
'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
And intimates eternity to man." 

In his forty-fifth year Addison married the Countess of 
Warwick, a gay, dashing, worldly, and thoroughly selfish 
woman, to whose son he had once been tutor. But they 
did not live happily, and he was often glad to escape from 
his magnificent home to his club, or some tavern, where 
he could have a pleasant talk with, or rather, at his 
friends, for he was a little too fond of monologues, drinking 
the healths of the absent ones to such an unnecessary ex- 
tent, that he soon lost his own. When in the mood, and 
with a few choice spirits, he would throw off all reserve 
and entertain them most delightfully. That brilliant 
'woman, Lady Mary Montagu, said she had known all the 
wits, and that Addison was the best company in the world. 
Pope, the sharp, envious little critic, owned there was a 
charm in his talk which could be found nowhere else. 
Swift also said he had never known any talker so agree- 
able. Steele said : " He was above all men hi that talent 
we call humor, arid enjoyed it in such perfection, that I 
have often reflected, after a night spent with him apart 
from all the world, that I had had the pleasure of convers- 
ing with an intimate acquaintance of Terence and Catul- 
lus, who had all their wit and nature, heightened with 
humor more exquisite and delightful than any other man 
ever possessed." He afterward speaks of that smiling 
mirth, that delicate satire, and genteel raillery, which ap- 
peared in Mr. Addison when he was free among intimates ; 
free from that remarkable bashfulness which is a cloak 
that hides and muffles merit : and his abilities were cov- 



118 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

ered only by modesty which doubles the beauties which 
are seen, and gives credit and esteem to all that are con- 
cealed." 

But these rare gifts were not exhibited to crowds, and 
to strangers he often appeared silent, if not stupid. He 
used to say there was no such thing as conversation but 
between two persons. 

In the first number of the Spectator, he writes of his 
timidity and gravity in his own quaint and charming style. 
He tells us that he threw away his rattle before he was 
two months old, and would not make use of his coral till 
the bells were taken from it. At the university, he dis- 
tinguished himself by a most profound silence. To quote 
his own words : " During the space of eight years, except- 
ing in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered 
the quantity of a hundred words ; and, indeed, I do not 
remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in 
my whole life." His last days were saddened by suffer- 
ing, the venomous criticisms of his rivals, and political ' 
vexations, but he endured all these trials with cheerful- 
ness and fortitude, and his peaceful death was a fitting 
close to a life in which there was- so little to regret. 
Calling his wild and thoughtless son-in-law to his bedside, 
he grasped his hand, saying softly, " See how a Christian 
can die ! " and soon after breathed his last, on the 17th day 
of June, 1719. His body was borne, at dead of night, to the 
Abbey. Sweet music floated on the air, and torches shed 
their glimmering light over dark arches and silent graves 
as the accomplished scholar was laid to rest in the chapel of 
Henry IV. His integrity is without a stain, and, with all 
his power of ridicule and satire, he has not left a word 
that could be called ungenerous or unkind : 

" Whose humor, as gay as the fire-fly's light, 

Played round every subject, and shone as it played ; 



ADDISON. 119 

Whose wit, in the combat as gentle as bright, 
Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade." 

His favorite psalm, was the twenty-third, ^hich he 
paraphrased in verse, and many of his hymns are well 
known. Thackeray says : " When this man looks from 
the world, whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, 
up to the heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly 
fancy a human face lighted up with a more serene rapture ; 
a human intellect, thrilling with a purer love and adora- 
tion than Joseph Addison's. Listen to him ; from your 
childhood you have known the verses ; but who can hear 
their sacred music without love and awe ? 

* Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 
And nightly to the listening earth 
Kepeats the story of her birth ; 

And all the stars that round her burn, 
And all the planets in their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 

* What though in solemn silence all 
Move round this dark terrestrial ball, 
What though no real voice nor sound 
Among their radiant orbs be found ? 
In reason's ear they all rejoice, 

And utter forth a glorious voice ; 
Forever singing as they shine, 
The hand that made us is divine.' 

It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. When 
he turns to heaven, a Sabbath comes over that man's 
mind ; and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks 
and prayer. His sense of religion stirs through his whole 
being. In the fields, in the town ; looking at the birds in 
the trees, at the children in the streets ; in the morning 
or in the moonlight ; over his books in his own room ; in 
a happy party at a country merry-making, or a town 
6 ' 



120 



HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 



assembly, good-will and peace to God's creatures, and 
love and awe of Him who made them, fill his pure heart 
and shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the most 
wretched, I think Addison's was one of the most enviable 
— a life prosperous and beautiful— a calm death— an im- 
mense fame and affection afterward for his happy and 
spotless name." 







HOLLAND HOUSE. 




jcnat: fnifc. 



SWIFT. 



" I was an odd sort of man.'" 

I haye now to tell you of another satirist, one of the 
wittiest men that ever lived, but who was unhappy all his 
days, and succeeded in making his best friends miserable, 
when he did not kill them with outright cruelty — a man 
so different from the good and gentle Addison, that one 
cannot turn to him with any pleasure. 

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, on the 30th of 
November, 1667. But his parents were English, and he 
had nothing of the Irish character. His mother, being 
left a widow in very embarrassed circumstances, her little 
boy was given to the care of an uncle, with whom he lived 



122 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

until he was twenty-one. Lack of means, and the want 
of a home and a father's protection and love, with a gall- 
ing sense of constant dependence, may have saddened and 
imbittered his life ; but he had the additional misfortune 
to be born without a heart, or, if he did possess that rather 
necessary organ, it was so cold, selfish, and unloving, as 
hardly to deserve the name. 

Speaking one day in a contemptuous way of his uncle, 
to whom he owed so much, a gentleman dared to rebuke 
him as he deserved. 

" Did he not give you an education ? " he asked. 

" Yes, v said Swift, gruffly, " the education of a dog." 

" Then, sir, you have not the gratitude of a dog ! " 
and, indeed, he had not. 

He must have been very lazy at school and academy, 
for, when he claimed the usual degree of Bachelor of Arts, 
he was considered too deficient for admission, and only 
gained it at last by " special favor," which meant special 
lack of merit. But this shamed him, and, determined to 
reform, he resolved to turn over a new leaf, and study 
eight hours a day. Some one says quaintly that good 
resolutions are like fainting ladies — they want to be carried 
out ! — and Swift, who had an iron will, did carry out this 
plan, and worked hard and steadily for several years. He 
was educated at Trinity College, through the kindness of 
his relatives. After his Uncle Goodwin's death, he was 
helped by another uncle, who .bestowed his benefactions 
in a more agreeable way, as Swift really acknowledged 
his kindness, and called him "the best of his relations." 

Scott tells us of a friendly cousin, who remembered 
him in these days : " Sitting one day in his chamber, ab- 
solutely penniless, he saw a seaman in the court below, 
who seemed inquiring for the apartment of one of the 
students. It occurred to Swift that this man might bring 
a message from his Cousin Willoughby, then settled as a 



SWIFT. 123 

Lisbon merchant, and the thought had scarcely crossed 
his mind, when the door opened, and the stranger, ap- 
proaching him, produced a large leathern purse of silver 
coin, and poured the contents before him as a present from 
his cousin. Swift, in his ecstasy, offered the bearer a part 
of his treasure, which the honest sailor generously de- 
clined. And from that moment Swift, who had so deeply 
experienced the miseries of indigence, resolved so to man- 
age his scanty income as never again to be reduced to 
extremity." 

His mother advised him, after leaving college, to seek 
the patronage of Sir William Temple, a friend of his 
uncle's, and a distant relative. This gentleman consented 
to give him a home, and make him his private secretary, 
but the position was distasteful and humiliating. He was, 
to be sure, in an elegant house, with books all about him, 
but he was treated as an upper servant, while always ex- 
pected to fawn, and cringe, and flatter, or else lose the 
favor of a man decidedly his inferior. Here he became 
known to King William, who used* sometimes to visit 
Moor Park, when its owner, was laid up with the gout, 
and his majesty, walking round the fine garden, took con- 
siderable notice of the swarthy secretary, teaching him to 
cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion, and eat it with Dutch 
economy. The latter lesson Swift remembered and made 
use of. 

There is a funny story about an alderman whom the 
dean once invited to dinner : " Amongst other vegetables, 
asparagus formed one of the dishes. The dean helped 
his guest, who shortly again called upon his host to be 
helped a second time, when the dean, pointing to the 
alderman's plate, said, 'Sir, first finish what you have 
upon your plate.' ' What, sir, eat my stalks ? ' ' Ay, sir, 
King William always ate the stalks ! ' 

" ' And, George,' said one of his friends, after hearing 



124 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

the story, c were you blockhead enough to obey him ? ' 
' Yes, doctor, and if you had dined with Dean Swift, tete- 
d-tete — faith, you would have been obliged to eat your 
stalks, too ! ' " 

The king also offered to make Swift a captain of horse, 
which, as his own notions were all military, was intended 
as an honor; but, of course, the great genius inwardly 
scorned this proposition, while refusing with mock hu- 
mility, and went on in the life so irksome and galling 
to his proud nature, " feeling like a caged tiger, submit- 
ting to the keeper who brings him food." 

In the words of Collier : " Standing midway between 
the elegantly selfish Sir William, who wrote, and gar- 
dened, and quoted the classics, and the liveried sneerers of 
the servants' hall, poor Swift gnawed at his own heart in 
disdainful silence, writhing helplessly under the lofty chid- 
ings of his honor and the vulgar insolence of his honor's 
own man." 

Once, in a desperate mood, he rebelled, and went away, 
but, finding a recommendation from his patron was needed 
to gain him any other position, he asked pardon, and re- 
turned, to remain until the death of Sir William, in 1698. 

Thackeray says : " I don't know any thing more melan- 
choly than the letter to Temple, in which, after having 
broke from his bondage, the poor wretch crouches piteously 
toward his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. 
He asks for testimonials for orders : 

" i The particulars required of me are what relate to 
morals and learning, and the reasons of quitting your 
honor's family — that is, whether the last was occasioned 
by any ill action. They are left entirely to your honor's 
mercy, though, in the first, I think I cannot reproach my- 
self for any thing further than for infirmities. This is all 
I dare at present beg from your honor, under circum- 
stances of life not worth your regard. What is left me to 



SWIFT. 125 

wish, next to the health and prosperity of your honor and 
family, is that Heaven would one day allow me the oppor- 
tunity of leaving my acknowledgments at your feet. I 
heg my most humble duty and service be presented to my 
ladies, your honor's lady and sister.' Can prostration fall 
deeper ? Could a slave bow lower ? " 

During these years of servile dependence and suffer- 
ing, he read almost constantly, wrote his famous treatise, 
•' The Battle of the Books," and won the undying love of 
Esther Johnson, the daughter of Temple's steward ; a 
pretty, black-eyed girl, who recited to him, and learned to 
think him a hero, almost a god. 

This acquaintance proved a blessing to Swift, the 
brightest thing in his dark life ; but to her it brought life- 
long sorrow. As apparent trifles often influence our whole 
lives, I shall have to add reality to romance, and say 
that he nearly killed himself one day by eating too many 
apples, and was troubled ever after, at times, with a dizzi- 
ness and deafness, which pursued him through life, and at 
last sent him to his grave. When I think of his oddity 
and cruelty, I try to believe that his brain was always 
diseased, which would be some excuse for his strange life. 
But I can tell you one good thing about him; he loved 
and respected his mother, and went to see her every year. 
Queer in this, as in every thing else, he would travel on 
foot, sleeping at night at some second-rate tavern, where 
he could get lodged for a penny and have clean sheets for 
sixpence. I don't really know whether he did this be- 
cause he wanted to see that sort of life — or to save a 
shilling. "Economy was with him the handmaid of 
Charity. He would save a sixpence by walking instead of 
riding, and send it at once to a poor neighbor. He always 
carried small coins in his pocket for charity, in his daily 
walks, never giving more than one at a time." He 
always kept an exact account of every penny that he 



126 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

spent or received, and there seemed to be a constant 
struggle in his mind between economy and justice. His 
attempts to adjust these accurately led to very ridiculous 
results. If he happened to dine with a friend poorer than 
himself, he would insist upon paying for his dinner, as if 
at a public house, and give his own guest money in ad- 
vance, to choose their own entertainment. On one occa- 
sion, when Pope and Gay visited him after supper, he 
calculated narrowly what they would have cost him, 
and gave each half a crown. Pope, in describing this, 
said: "Doctor Swift has an odd, blunt way, that is mis- 
taken by strangers for ill-nature. It* is so odd, that there's 
no describing it but by facts. I will tell you one that first 
comes into my head. One evening Gay and I went to see 
him ; you know how intimately we were all acquainted. 
On our coming in, ' Heyday, gentlemen,' says the doctor, 
4 what's the meaning of this visit ? How came you to 
leave all the great lords you are so fond of, to come hither 
to see a poor dean ? ' 

" ' Because we would rather see you than any of them.' 
" ' Ay, any one, that did not know you as well as I do, 
might believe you. But since you are come, I must get 
some supper for you, I suppose.' 

" ' No, doctor, we have supped already.' 
" ' Supped already ? that's impossible ; why, it is not 
eight o'clock yet. That's very strange ! but if you had not 
supped, I must have got something for you. Let me see, 
c what should I have had ? a couple of lobsters ; ay, that 
would have done very well ; two shillings ; tarts a shilling. 
But you will drink a glass of wine with me, though you 
supped so much before your usual time only to spare my 
pocket.' 

"'No, we had rather talk with you than drink with 
you.' 

" i But if you had supped with me, as in all reason you 



SWIFT. 127 

ought to have done, you must then have drunk with me. 
A bottle of wine, two shillings — two and two is four, and 
one is five ; just two and sixpence apiece. There, Pope, 
there's half a crown for you, and there's another for you, 
sir; for I won't save any thing by you, I am determined.' 

" This was all said and done with his usual seriousness 
on such occasions ; and, in spite of every thing we could 
say to the contrary, he actually obliged us to take the 
money ! " 

He began early to think he was a poet, and published 
some " Pindaric odes," but they made little impression. 
Dryden, who was a connection, told him plainly — " Coz, ' 
you will never make a poet," which caused Swift to hate 
him ever after. An irreligious divine, a heartless politi- 
cian, could not well be a true poet, but he could write 
verses in a very easy, natural way, and, as he said himself, 
in a poem on his own death : 

" The dean was famous in his time, 
And had a kind of knack at rhyme." 

He excelled in humorous satire, though destitute of 
refinement and originality. But his power lay in his 
prose ; clear, concise, and strong, though, too often, coarse 
and unreasonably severe. After his patron's death, who 
left him a legacy and his papers, he went to Ireland, as 
chaplain and private secretary to the Earl of Berkeley, and, 
after many disappointments, obtained the living of Lara- 
cor, some years later. Here he seems to have been 
faithful to his duties, however unfitted for them, and 
preached regularly, for six years, to an audience of fifteen 
persons, reading prayers every Wednesday and Saturday ; 
the first time to his clerk alone, to whom he addressed 
the service thus: "Dearly-beloved Roger, the Scripture 
moveth you and me in sundry places." 

Here, in his thirty-fifth year, he began his career as a 



128 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

political writer, by a pamphlet on the side of the Whigs ; 
and three years later (1704) appeared his famous satiric 
allegory, "The Tale of a Tub." This extraordinary 
name was suggested by the fact that sailors are wont to 
fling out a tub in order to turn aside a whale from his 
threatened dash on the ship. So he threw out this satire, 
to prevent his opponents from injuring the ship of State. 
It ridicules the disputes between the different religious 
sects, and, although it established his fame as a brilliant 
satirist, yet it led good people to look on him with dis- 
trust. 

Here is the story, briefly told: "Three brothers — 
Peter, Martin, and Jack — receive from their dying father 
coats, which, if carefully kept clean, will last them all their 
lives. As the fashions change, they add to the simple 
coat shoulder-knots, gold lace, silver fringes, embroidery 
of Indian figures, twisting the meaning of their father's 
will so as to give a seeming sanction to these innovations. 
Peter " (evidently the apostle of that name, here taken to 
represent the Roman Catholic Church) " locks up the will, 
assumes the style of a lord, and wears his coat proudly, as 
it is. His brothers, stealing a copjr of the document, 
leave the great house, and begin to reform their coats. 
Martin " (Luther) " goes to work cautiously in stripping off 
the adornments, and leaves some of the embroidery alone, 
lest he may -injure the cloth. But Jack" (Calvin), " in his 
hot zeal, plucks off all at once, and in so doing splits the 
seams, and tears away great pieces of the coat. Thus does 
Swift depict the corruptions of early Christianity and the 
results of the Reformation, in a satire of uncommon power 
and strange, mad drollery. His sympathies are all with 
Martin, and Peter gets off better than Jack." 

He soon deserted the Whigs, failing to gain from them 
the preferment he desired, and several years were devoted 
to writing on political subjects in a fierce and bitter style, 



. SWIFT. , 129 

attacking his old party in the most savage, caustic way. 
His great ambition was a bishopric in England ; but his 
new allien did not quite dare to put the sneering, cavilling 
author of the " Tale of a Tub " in that position. 

Hannay says, however, that the piety of that period 
was so extreme as to be odious and sickening cant. " The 
real reason was, that he had satirized a favorite — for this 
was the age of favorites and back-stairs influence — and 
Swift had scattered some of his terrible Greek fire over 
the sycophants of St. James." 

They did at last reward him with the deanery of St. 
Patrick's, in Dublin ; but, unfortunately for his prospects, 
the queen's death soon after brought the Whigs again into 
power, and he was forced to remain in Ireland, which was 
little better than exile. 

He became immensely popular in Ireland by a political 
pamphlet, urging the use of home manufactures, and by a 
series of letters, signed "M. B. Drapier," warning the 
people not to exchange their gold and silver for the bad 
money of a certain William Wood, who had obtained a 
patent for coining half-pence for the use of Ireland, to an 
immense extent. Swift proved that it was a gross fraud, 
certain to ruin the nation, and the patent was annulled. 
For this he had such a popularity with the rabble as to 
gain the title of " The King of the Mob." His influence 
over the people was unbounded. The eyes of the kingdom 
were now turned with one consent on the man by whose 
unbending fortitude and preeminent talents this triumph 
was achieved. The Drapier' s Head became a sign, his 
portrait was engraved, woven upon handkerchiefs, stuck 
upon medals, and displayed in every possible manner as 
the liberator of Ireland. And, like true Irishmen, they 
were all ready to fight for him. " If," said he to an arch- 
bishop who blamed him for kindling a riotous flame, " if I 
had lifted up my finger, they would have torn you to 



130 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. «• 

pieces." When Walpole meditated his arrest, his proposal 
was checked by a prudent friend, who inquired if he could 
spare ten thousand soldiers to guard the messenger who 
should execute so perilous a commission. It is said that 
his grateful admirers even begged for locks of his. hair, 
until he feared he should have none left. All this grati- 
tude and glory would have been a bright spot in his dark 
life, which was a tragedy from beginning to end, if he had 
been a true patriot. But the good work sprang from hatred 
of England, rather than honest devotion to Green Erin. 
Still it may not be best to analyze too closely the motives 
of our greatest men, and, to be impartial, I will quote a few 
words from an Irish author : " On this gloom one luminary 
rose, and Ireland worshipped it with Persian idolatry; 
her true patriot — her first — almost her last. Sagacious 
and intrepid, he saw, he dared ; above suspicion, he was 
trusted ; above envy, he was beloved ; above rivalry, he 
was obeyed. His wisdom was practical and prophetic — 
remedial for the present, warning for the future. He first 
taught Ireland that she might cease to \>e a despot. But 
he was a churchman. His gown impeded his course and 
entangled his efforts — guiding a senate, or heading an 
army, he had been more than Cromwell, and Ireland not 
less than England. As it was, he saved her by his cour- 
age, improved her by his authority, adorned her by his 
talents, and exalted her by his fame. His mission was 
but of ten years ; and for ten years only did his personal 
power mitigate the government. But, though no longer 
feared by the great, he was not forgotten by the wise ; 
his influence, like his writings, has survived a century, 
and the foundations of whatever prosperity we have since 
erected are laid in the disinterested and magnanimous 
patriotism of Swift." 

In 1726 he published his most perfect satire, "Gulli- 
ver's Travels," in which he describes the wonderful and 



SWIFT. 131 

amusing adventures of a commonplace and well-meaning 
surgeon, Lemuel Gulliver, who, after being shipwrecked, 
finds himself in the country of Liliput, where the inhabi- 
tants are about six inches high, and every other object in 
exact proportion. Afterward he visits the land of the 
gigantic Brobdingnagians, where the smallest dwarf is at 
least thirty feet high. The object of the allegory is to show 
how contemptible and foolish are the vices and passions 
of mankind, and how contemptible human nature appears 
to him. Every child is charmed with this story, and it 
never fails to entertain those who do not see, or do not 
care to see, the undercurrent of almost fiendish satire that 
runs through the whole. Here is a pleasant specimen of 
his grave irony, describing Gulliver's boating experiences 
in Brobdingnag: 

" The queen, who often used to hear me talk of my 
sea-voyages, and took all occasions to divert me when I 
was melancholy, asked me whether I understood how to 
handle a sail or an oar, and whether a little exercise of 
rowing might not be convenient for my health. I an- 
swered, that I understood both very well ; for, although 
my proper employment had been to be surgeon or doctor 
to the ship, yet often upon a pinch I was forced to work 
like a common mariner. But I could not see how this 
could be done in their country, where the smallest wherry 
was equal to a first-rate man-of-war among us, and such a 
boat as I could manage would never live in any of their 
rivers. Her majesty said, if *I would contrive a boat, her 
own joiner should make it, and she would provide a place 
for me to sail in. The fellow was an ingenious workman, 
and, by my instructions, in ten days finished a pleasure- 
boat, with all its tackling, able conveniently to hold eight 
Europeans. When it was finished, the queen was so de- 
lighted, that she ran with it in her lap to the king, who 
ordered it to be put in a cistern full of water, with me in it 



132 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

by way of trial ; where I could not manage my two sculls, 
or little oars, for want of room. But the queen had before 
contrived another project. She ordered the joiner to 
make a wooden trough of three hundred feet long, fifty 
broad, and eight deep, which, being well pitched, to pre-' 
vent leaking, was placed on the floor along the wall in an 
outer room of the palace. It had a cock near the bottom 
to let out the water, when it began to grow stale ; and 
two servants could easily fill it in half an hour. Here I 
often used to row for my own diversion, as well as that of 
the queen and her ladies, who thought themselves well en- 
tertained with my skill and agility. Sometimes I would 
put up my sail, and then my business was only to steer, 
while the ladies gave me a gale with their fans ; and when 
they were weary, some of the pages would blow my sail 
forward with their breath, while I showed my art by 
steering starboard or larboard, as I pleased. When I had 
done, Glumdalclitch always carried back my boat into 
her closet, and hung it on a nail to dry." 

I do not know but that his coolest irony is seen in his 
satire on the misgovernment of Ireland, in a pamphlet en- 
titled, " A Modest Proposal to the Public, for Preventing 
the Children of Poor People in Ireland from being a Bur- 
den to their country, and for making them Beneficial to 
the Public." He suggests that these superfluous children 
be used for food, as they then might be changed from 
a public grievance into a source of pecuniary benefit. 
" I have been assured," says he, " by a very knowing 
American of my acquaintance in London, " that a young 
healthy child, well-nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, 
nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, 
baked, or boiled ; and, I make no doubt, it will equally 
serve in a ragout." He goes on to argue in this way with 
such earnestness and gravity, that the pamphlet was 



SWIFT. 133 

quoted by a French writer of the time, to illustrate the 
hopeless barbarity of the English. 

But do not imagine that the author of these burlesques 
was a happy man, for I cannot picture a more miserable 
being. He wrote to his friend Bolingbroke at this time : 
" It is time for me to have done with the world, and so I 
would if I could get into a better before I was called into 
the best — and not have to die here, like a poisoned rat, 
in a hole." 

His only consolation seemed to be his intimate ac- 
quaintance with the unfortunate Miss Johnson, who, at 
his request, had followed him to Dublin, and lived near 
him. All these years he had written her almost daily 
letters, full of love and tenderness ; told her he loved her 
better than his life, a thousand million times — but neither 
married her nor allowed her to marry any one else. At 
the same time he was keeping up a correspondence with 
another beautiful girl, who had also recited to him, and 
whose affections he trifled with in the most unprincipled 
way, permitting her to love him with all the power of a 
very intense nature. And the unfortunate denouement^ 
he tells us, was so unlooked for ! When he came one day 
to say adieu in a fatherly way, as was natural and proper, 
he was distressed to hear the maiden confess — her love ! 
In his own words : 

" Cadenus felt within him rise 
Shame, disappointment, and surprise, 
He knew not how to reconcile 
Such language with her usual style ; 
And yet her thoughts were so expressed, 
He could not hope she spoke in jest. 
His thoughts had wholly been confined 
To form and cultivate her mind ; 
He hardly knew, till he was told, 
Whether the nymph were young or old ; 
Had met her in a public place, 
Without distins-uishino; her face. 



131 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Much less could bis declining age 
Yannessa's earliest thoughts engage 
And if her youth indifference met, 
His person must contempt beget. 
Or grant her passion be sincere, 
How shall his innocence be clear ; 
Appearances were all so strong, 
The world must think him in the wrong." 

Those last two lines have certainly the appearance of 
truth, and the world's verdict is not very far from his 
supposition. When the poor girl heard of Stella, she was 
wildly jealous, then almost crazy with grief, and at last 
died of a broken heart. It is said her death shocked the 
dean ; it did not make him more human in his treatment 
of Stella. She always lived in another house, but near 
enough to come when he was ill or suffering, and nurse 
him with untiring devotion. She arranged his table when 
he gave a dinner, but never took her proper place there. It 
is affirmed that he was at last privately married to her in 
the deanery garden, but this made no difference in their 
peculiar relations. She still remained in her own home. 
Crushed by this cruel, unnatural treatment, Stella sank 
into her grave in her forty-fourth year ; and Swift really 
mourned then, because he wanted her care, and missed her 
unselfish affection. He never mentioned her without a 
sigh. He preserved one of those dark, glossy curls in a 
paper, onwhich was written " Only a woman's hair." 

Scott interprets this cynical indifference as an attempt 
to hide his deep feeling. If that was his aim, his success 
was admirable. 

It is extraordinary that a man who was neither young, 
nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, should have 
inspired such love. His countenance was sour and severe, 
and his complexion muddy. Johnson says, in his stately 
way, that, although he washed his face with " Oriental 
scrupulosity" it would never look clean. Perhaps he 



SWIFT. 135 

conquered with his eyes, which Pope said were " azure as 
the heavens, with a charming archness in them." 

After Stella's death he became crabbed, and stingy, 
and deaf, and cross, and miserable. His birthday, which 
was always celebrated with bonfires and great rejoicings, 
was to him the saddest day of the year. He had made a 
foolish vow not to wear glasses, so he could not read. He 
thus describes his own condition : 

" Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone, 
To all my friends a burden grown ; 
No more I hear my church's bell 
Than if it rang out for my knell ; 
At thunder now no more I start 
Than at the rumbling of a cart ; 
Nay, what's incredible, alack ! 
I hardly hear a woman's clack." 

He lost reason and memory, and died a solitary idiot 
in the hands of servants, on the 19th of October, 1745. 
He bequeathed most of his property to an hospital for 
lunatics and idiots — 

" To show, by one satiric touch, 
No nation wanted it so much." 

Let us turn from this sad picture to some specimens 
of his wit : 

A pert young man once said to him, " Do you know, 
Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit ? " "Do you so ? " an- 
swered Mr. Swift ; " take my advice and — sit down again." 

In travelling, he called at a hospitable house, where 
the good but garrulous lady asked him with great eager- 
ness what he would have for dinner. " Will you have an 
apple-pie, sir, or a cherry-pie, .sir, or a plum-pie, sir ? " 
" Any pie, madam, but a mag-pie." 

He disliked profuse apology, and, when a fanner's wife 
spoiled his dinner by saying " It is not good enough for 



16b HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

his worship to sit down to," he exclaimed : " Then why 
didn't you get a better ? You knew I was coming. I've 
a great mind to go away and dine on a red herring." 

A gentleman, trying to persuade him to dine at his 
house, said, " I will send the bill of fare." Swift replied, 
"Send me your bill of company." 

The taxes were very severe in Ireland. Lady Carteret, 
wife of the lord-lieutenant, said to him : " The air of 
Ireland is very excellent and healthy." "For goodness' 
sake," said Swift, " don't say so in England, madam, for if 
you do, they will certainly tax it." 

His favorite barber, having decided to take a public 
house and yet keep up his old business, begged the dean 
to give him " a smart little touch of poetry, to clap under 
his sign." So he wrote this couplet, which remained for 
many years : 

" Rove not from pole to pole, but step in here, 
Where naught excels the shaving, but the beer." 

He was fond of making extempore proverbs, to suit the 
circumstances. Walking with some friends in a gentle- 
man's garden, who did not invite them to enjoy his tempt- 
ing fruit, Swift observed that it was a saying of his dear 
grandmother : 

" Always pull a peach, 
When it is within your reach ! " 

and at once helped himself, followed by the whole com- 
pany. 

His servants were truly attached to him, and would 
never leave him, yet his method of discipline was peculiar. 
One of them annoyed him by her carelessness — leaving 
doors open. She had once obtained permission to attend 
her sister's wedding, and had been gone some fifteen min- 
utes, when she was sent for to return. Back she came, 



SWIFT. 137 

post-haste, to the dean's study, to know what he wanted. 
" Shut the door ! " was the laconic answer, with a long 
moral understood. 

He sometimes loved to impose upon the credulity of 
the Irish, especially their faith in him. When a large 
crowd had gathered one morning to see an eclipse, he 
gave a crier a shilling to announce, "that it was the 
pleasure of the dean that the eclipse should not come off 
till nine o'clock the next day." Whereupon they all 
quietly dispersed. 

There is a witty epigram, reporting a little sharp- 
shooting between the caustic dean and some unknown fair 
one, in which the lady certainly had the best of it : 

" Cries Sylvia to a reverend dean, 
1 What reason can be given, 
Since marriage is a holy thing, 
That there are none in heaven ? ' 

1 There are no women? he replied ; 

She quick returned the jest : 
4 Women there are, but I'm afraid 

They cannot find a priesV " 

In judging the character and conduct of this unhappy 
man, we should remember his peculiar temperament 
and his disordered brain. He was loved and sincerely 
lamented by his friends, by the poor, by the whole Irish 
nation whom he helped so powerfully. He wanted a 
proper position in life, and was no more selfish than other 
men in his efforts to obtain it. He did much for England, 
and expected. England to do something for him. His 
faults were so prominent, that his virtues are apt to be 
•forgotten; and, no doubt, his memory has been treated 
with too much harshness. A man could not have been 
wholly bad whom Addison spoke of " as the most agree- 
able companion, the truest friend, the greatest genius of 
his times." 



138 



HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 



Sir James Mackintosh said of him : " The distinguish- 
ing feature of his moral character was a strong sense of 
justice, which disposed him to exact with rigor, as well 
as in general scrupulously to observe, the duties of 
society. These powerful feelings, exasperated probably 
by some circumstances of his own life, were gradually 
formed into an habitual and painful indignation against 
triumphant wrong, which became the ruling principle of 
his character and writings. His hatred of hypocrisy 
sometimes drove him to a parade of harshness, which 
made his character appear less amiable than it really was. 
His friendships were faithful, if not tender, and his benefi- 
cence was active, though it rather sprang from principle 
than feeling. No stain could be discoverable in his 
private conduct, if we could forget his intercourse with 
one unfortunate and with one admirable woman." 




LARACOR CHURCH. 




POPE. 



" His whole nature was small, thin, and fine, rather than large or "broad. Like . 
a tongue of flame, however, thin and small as it was, it was high-aspiring." 

Among the brilliant wits of Queen Anne's reign, none 
stands higher than Alexander Pope, born in the memo- 
rable year of the revolution, May 22, 1688. But sad- 
ness mingled with joy in his mother's heart, for her child 
was both sickly and deformed. His face, in childhood, 
however, was remarkably pleasant, his temper mild and 
gentle, and his voice so sweet that he was called " the 
little nightingale." When this pretty, delicate boy be- 
came a famous poet, he used his powers of sarcasm so often 
and so freely, that he was feared and hated as well as ad- 
mired ; and gruff old Dr. Johnson said of him, that " the 



140 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

weakness of his body continued through his life, but the 
mildness of his mind ended with his childhood." Play- 
ing in the yard one day, when not more than three years 
old, he came very near being killed by a mad cow, which 
had not the slighest respect for youthful genius. He 
was loading a little cart with stones and dirt, when the 
animal struck at him, wounded him in the throat, tossing 
off his hat and feather with her horns, and flung the poor 
little fellow down on the heap of stones he had been 
playing with. A kind aunt taught him to read, and he 
learned to write by carefully copying the printed charac- 
ters in books, diverting himself in that way as other 
children do with scrawling pictures. 

He began to compose poetry almost as soon as he 
could talk, and says of himself : 

" While yet a child and all unknown to fame, 
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 

Among his poems you will find an " Ode on Solitude," 
written before he was twelve, which is a wonderful pro- 
duction for a boy-poet — a true poem and perfect in its 
way. As it is short, I will give you the whole of it : 

" Happy the man whose wish and care 

A few paternal arcres bound ; 

Content to breathe his native air, 

In his own ground. 

" Whose herds with milk, whose field with bread, 
Whose flocks supply him with attire, 
Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
In winter fire. 

" Blessed who can unconcern' dly find 

Hours, days, and years slide soft away, 
In health of body, peace of mind, 
Quiet by day. 



POPE. 141 

u Sound sleep by night : study and ease 
Together mixed, sweet recreation ; 
And innocence, which most does please 
With meditation. 

" Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, 
Thus unlamented let me die, 
Steal from the world, and not a stone 
Tell where I lie." 

This is a quiet, unambitious picture, but you can 
judge but little of one's true feelings by bis writings. 
This slender, sweet-faced boy had already built many a 
glowing air-castle for the future, and had revelled in wild 
dreams of coming fame. He was fond of copying the 
style of other authors, and in one of his early effusions 
imitated Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Homer, and Virgil; 
but Dryden was the poet whom he most admired, and he 
induced some friends to take him to Will's Coffee-house, 
that he might look at the great man, whose style he pro- 
posed to follow. How the heart of the ambitious, intellect- 
ual little hero-worshipper would have bounded and thrilled 
with joy could he have foreseen his future triumphs, 
and realized that he was not to be compared with, but 
considered superior to, this literary lion whom he was 
gazing at with such curiosity, admiration, and reverence ! 
About this time, his father, a Catholic, and wealthy linen- 
draper, gave up business in disgust at the shadow which 
the revolution had flung upon his church, and retired to 
Binfield, near Windsor Forest, where he owned a farm of 
twenty acres, and a small, cosy house, with a row of grace- 
ful elms before the # door. Here for several summers the 
young dreamer gave himself up to the study of books 
and Nature, becoming familiar with a great number of the 
English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. " This 
I did," he says, "without any design except to amuse 
myself; and got the languages by hunting after the 



142 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

stories in the several poets I read, rather than read the 
books to get the languages, and was like a boy gathering 
flowers in the fields and woods, just as they fell in my 
way. These five or six years I look upon as the happiest 
in my life." 

Thackeray speaks of this as " a beautiful holiday pic- 
ture. The forest and the!* fairy story-book — the boy spell- 
ing Ariosto or Virgil under the trees, battling with the 
Cid for the love of Chimene, or dreaming of Armida's 
garden — peace and sunshine round about — the kindest 
love and tenderness waiting for him at his quiet home 
yonder, and Genius throbbing in his young heart, and 
whispering to him : c You shall be great — you shall be 
famous — you, too, shall love and sing — you will sing her 
so nobly, that some kind heart shall forget you are weak 
and ill-formed.' " 

Pope never knew the toils and pleasures of college-life, 
and was decidedly a self-educated man. His father used 
to encourage his poetical tastes, carefully correcting what- 
ever he wrote, while his dear, simple-hearted mother and 
loving sister almost worshipped him. The latter says : 
" I think no man was ever so little fond of money ; " and 
again, " I think my brother, when he was young, read 
more books than any man in the world." 

Some people thought him half crazy in those days — 
were doubtful whether he would make a madman or a 
poet. But he kept on reading and writing, translating 
from the classic poets, paraphrasing Chaucer's tales, etc., 
and in 1711 appeared his " Essay on Criticism," finished be- 
fore he was twenty-one, which was received with universal 
admiration, and compelled all to own his power. In it 
you will find many true thoughts, dressed in language 
sparkling, pointed, elegant, and its pithy, witty couplets 
are often quoted. No other poet, always* excepting Shake- 
speare, has furnished more brief quotations, full of truth, 



4 

POPE. 143 

yet tinged with worldly wisdom. Let me run through 
this Essay, giving some of the most familiar lines : 

" 'Tis with our judgment?, as with our watches, none 
Go just alike, yet each believes his own." 

" A little learning is a dangerous thing ; 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." 

" True wit is nature, to advantage dressed, 
"What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." 

" Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, 
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found." ' 

" To err is human — to forgive, divine." 

" For fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 

And those lines to illustrate his idea that " sound must 
seem an echo to the sense : " 

"When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 
The line too labors, and the words move slow ; 
Xot so when swift Camilla scours the plain, 
Hies o'er the unbending corn and skims along the main." 

In the next year he published " The Rape of the 
Lock," which tells the story of a silken curl cut from a fair 
maiden's head by a gay and daring young nobleman. The 
affair caused a violent quarrel between the two families, 
and Pope wrote this miniature epic — airy, fanciful, ex- 
quisite — to laugh them to'gether again. Besides being the 
most brilliant specimen of the mock-heroic style ever 
attempted in English verse, it gives a more faithful and 
vivid idea of fashionable life in the reign of Queen Anne 
than we could gain from any sober history of the time. 
Listen to the description of Belinda's artificial charms : 

" And now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed, 
Each silver vase in mystic order laid : 
First robed in white, the nymph intent adores, 
With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers ; 

7 



144 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

A heavenly image in the glass appears, 
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears ; 
The inferior priestess at her altar's side, 
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride ; 
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here 
The various offerings of the world appear ; 
From each she nicely culls with curious toil, 
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil. 
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks, 
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box ; 
The tortoise here and elephant unite, 
Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white. 
Here files of pins extend their shining rows, 
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux. 
Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms ; 
The fair each moment rises in her charms, 
Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace, 
And calls forth all the wonders of her face ; 
Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, 
And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. 
The busy Sylphs surround their darling care, 
These set the head, and those divide the hair ; 
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the go\rti, 
And Betty's praised for labors not her own." 

The machinery of the poem, as critics call the intro- 
duction of supernatural beings into the action of the plot, 
was taken from the Rosicrucian doctrine that the four 
elements are filled with sylphs, gnomes, nymphs, and sala- 
manders. These tiny, invisible * sprites, whfch give half 
the charm to the story, were added after it was finished. 
Belinda was surrounded by a body-guard of these aerial 
visitors — 

" Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend ; 
Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair, 
Some hang upon the pendants of her ear." 

And yet all their care was in vain — her " favorite lock " 
was stolen in spite of them all. I must give you the story 
of that daring theft : 



POPE. 145 

" For lo ! the board with cups and spoons is crowned, 
The berries crackle, and the mill turns round : 
On shining altars of Japan they raise 
The silver lamp ; the fiery spirits blaze : 
From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, 
While China's earth receives the smoking tide ; 
At once they gratify their scent and taste, 
And frequent cups prolong the rich repast. 
Straight hover round the fair her airy band ; 
Some, as she sipped, the fuming liquor fanned ; 
Some o'er her lap their .careful plumes displayed, 
Trembling and conscious of the rich brocade. 
Coffee (which makes the politician wise, 
And see through all things with his half-shut eyes) 
Sent up in vapors to the baron's brain 
New stratagems the radiant lock to gain. 
Ah ! cease, rash youth ; desist ere 'tis too late ; 
Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate ! 
Changed to a bird, and sent to flit in air, 
She dearly paid for Nisus' injured hair ! 

But when to mischief mortals bend their will, 
How soon they find fit instruments of ill ! 
Just then, Clarissa drew, with tempting grace, 
A two-edged weapon from her shining case ; 
So ladies, in romance, assist their knight, 
Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. 
He takes the gift with reverence, and extends 
The little engine on his fingers' ends ; 
This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, 
As o'er the fragrant steams she bent her head. 
Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair, 
A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair ! 
And thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear.; 
Thrice she looked back, and thrice the foe drew near. 
Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought 
The close recesses of the virgin's thought: 
As on the nosegay in her breast reclined, 
He watched the ideas rising in her mind. 
Sudden he viewed, in spite of all her art, 
An earthly lover lurking at her heart. 
Amazed, confused, he found his power expired, 
Resigned to fate, and with a sigh retired. 



146 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

The peer now spreads the glittering forfex wide 
To enclose the lock; now joins it, to divide. 
E'en then, before the fatal engine closed, 
A wretched Sylph too fondly interposed ; 
Fate urged the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain 
(But airy substance soon unites again), 
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever 
From the fair head, forever, and forever !" 

Soon after the appearance o*f this enchanting little 
poem, Pope published " The Temple of Fame," a revival 
of Chaucer's "House of Fame," and his descriptive 
poem of " Windsor Forest ; " but he had no real love for 
nature, excellino; in satiric sketching of the absurdities 
and affectations of artificial society. These poems, though 
so clever and charming, did not help very much to fill 
his purse; and poets, like ordinary mortals, find money 
a very necessary thing. So he went to work in earnest, 
and the next dozen years were spent in translating 
Homer's great epics, " The Iliad " and " The Odyssey," 
and from these he gained a comfortable fortune. But it 
was hard, uncongenial work. He said to a friend : " In the 
beginning of my translating Homer, I wished anybody 
would hang me, a hundred times. It sat so heavily on my 
mind at first, that I often used to dream of it, and even 
do, sometimes, still to this day. My dream usually was, 
that I had set out on a very long journey, puzzled which 
way to take, and full of fears that I should never get to 
the end of it. My time and eyes have been wholly em- 
ployed upon Homer, whom I almost fear I shall find but 
one way of imitating, which is in his blindness" As 
translations, they are very praiseworthy, but must not be 
compared with the original. " A pretty poem, Mr. Pope, 
but you must not call it Homer," was the criticism of the 
great scholar, Bentley. 

"Like Dry den translating Virgil, Pope did little 
more than reproduce the sense of Homer's verse in smooth 



pope. 147 

and neatly-balanced English couplets, leaving the spirit 
behind in the glorious rough old Greek, that tumbles on 
the ear like the roar of a winter sea." 

A large part of the money thus gained he spent very 
wisely in buying a house and garden at Twickenham, one 
of the most beautiful spots on the banks of the Thames. 
He made his home a little paradise, and the grounds, 
adorned with grottoes and fountains, were a miracle of 
beauty. Here he brought his parents, who lived with him 
till their death, and here he entertained the greatest, wit- 
tiest, and wisest men of his time, all of whom were proud 
to call themselves his friends. Like Swift, he loved and 
reverenced his mother, and it is touching to notice how all 
these famous wits and philosophers and divines have a 
kind word or thoughtful remembrance for that dear old 
lady. Swift mentioned him as one 

" whose filial piety excels 



Whatever Grecian story tells.'' 

He has himself written beautifully on this subject : 

" Me, let the tender office long engage, 
To rock the cradle of reposing age, 
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, 
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death ; 
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, 
And keep awhile one parent from the sky." 

Perhaps the life of this dutiful son, in such a beautiful 
home, may seem to you a happy one; but deformed, 
sensitive, dreading ridicule, and exasperated by cruel 
taunts, he suffered much more than he enjoyed. Every 
morning he had to be dressed like a child. His distorted 
figure was encased in stays of stiff canvas, and three 
pairs of stockings were needed to make his slender legs 
respectable. His stature was so low, that he was obliged 



148 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

to use a high chair at table, and could neither go to 
bed nor rise without help. Do you wonder that he was 
often irritable, exacting, childish ? It is said that, though 
sometimes merry in company, he was never seen to laugh. 
His health was improved by his retirement from city life. 
He was not strong enough to endure the excitements there. 

Addison and his friends used often to sit until two 
o'clock in the morning with their pipes «and punch, and, 
unlike Pope, laughed and grew fat. 

Swift,* Addison, Steele, Gay, and Thomson, were all 
corpulent. As Thackeray puts it: "All that fuddling 
and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing, 
shortened the lives and enlarged the waistcoats of the 
men of that age." Once in a while he would invite these 
jovial friends to Twickenham for a handsome dinner, but 
his general habits were a little stingy. He once placed a . 
pint of wine on his table, and, after drinking a glass him- 
self, left the room, saying to his guests : " Gentlemen, I 
leave you to your wine." This is almost worse than 
Swift's way of paying his friends for the food they had 
not eaten ! He was very economical in regard to paper, 
and most of his translations were written on the backs of 
envelopes and such odd scraps. He was rather a dis- 
agreeable visitor, keeping the servants in a constant state 
of impatience by his numerous calls. His best thoughts 
would often come at night, and then Betty was rung for, 
and a cup of coffee must be brought to aid the eccentric 
invalid in jotting them down. He was a great epicure, 
and would lie in bed for days together, unless told of 
some especial delicacy, when he would get up at once to 
enjoy it. 

His friendships with men were delightful, until some 
reason came for a quarrel ; but he had no honest regard 
for women, whom he always wrote of in the most spiteful, 
ungenerous way. Failing to gain their love, his stilted 



pope. 149 

admiration changed to earnest hating. For instance, look 
at his acquaintance with Lady Mary Montagu, whom, at 
first, he praised excessively, and told her so in set phrases 
in many fine letters. Whenever he thought one particu- 
larly good, he would copy it, and send it to some o.ther 
lady, to produce effect. In one of these letters, so full 
of sham sentiment, addressed to Lady Mary, he says : 
" I think I love you as well as King Herod could Herodias 
(though I never had so much as one dance with you), and 
would as freely give you my head in a dish, as he did 
another's head." But Lady Mary was once so amused by 
his extravagant professions of regard as to laugh outright 
in her adorer's face, and from that time he pursued her 
not with honey, hut gall, until she gave him the sobri- 
quet of "The Wasp of Twickenham," and said that he 
. assumed the mask of a moralist in order to decry human 
nature, and to give vent to his hatred of man and woman 
kind. 

Gay, a brother poet, once sent him a touching story, 
very simply and sweetly told, of two country lovers, 
killed by a lightning-fiash during a summer shower. 
Pope thought it extremely well done — and at once sent it 
to Lady Montagu — as his own. His great and increasing 
fame caused him to be hated and attacked by a host of 
inferior writers. Some one says that " a poet should have 
the hide of a hippopotamus to be happy," and Pope was 
very thin skinned. They stung and exasperated him, until 
at length, like Dryden, he revenged himself by a bitter 
poem, "The Dunciad," in which he lashed his envious 
critics most unmercifully, giving many a fame they could 
have gained in no other way. These scribblers have 
gained immortality, though not exactly in the way they 
desired, preserved like straws in amber — "the trash of 
literature vitrified by the lightning of indignant genius." 

His life was really in danger after this fierce attack 



150 ' HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

upon his enemies, but he still took his daily walk alone, 
and, though so feeble, would allow no one to go with him. 
" I had rather die at once," said he, " than live in fear of 
those rascals." ' Indeed, he felt a "keen delight in seeing 
how deeply his " scorn-winged arrows" had pierced the 
hearts of the " dunces," exclaiming : 

" I know I'm proud — I must be proud to see 
Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me." 

It is curious to trace this word " dunce " to its source, 
the great teacher of the Franciscan order, Duns Scotus, 
whom his followers called the " subtle doctor." But 
those who did not accept his theology would say to his 
disciples : " Oh, you are a Dunsman," or, more briefly, 
" You are a Duns," and, as his teaching and theories lost 
ground, the word became in time a synonyme for stupidity. 
In his "Essay on Man," Pope attempts to vindicate 
Providence, and to show the necessity of evil in the 
world, and that our finite capacities fail to see the wisdom 
of God's perfect plan. In short : 

" All nature is but art, unknown to thee ; 
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; 
All discord, harmony not understood ; 
All partial evil, universal good ; 
And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right." 

His own idea of this poem is well expressed in these 
lines : 

" Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, 
And catch the manners living as they rise ; 
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, 
But vindicate the ways of God to man." 

Pope has been accused of being a fatalist, but he 
positively asserts man's free agency and responsibility: 
and though he did not look at life and life's realities from 



POPE. 151 

the noblest stand-point, he certainly intended to write in 
favor of morality -and Christianity. The " Essay " is full 
of beautiful lines, but T will only make one extract : 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul ; 
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, 
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame, 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; 
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; 
As full as perfect, in vile man that mourns, 
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns ; 
To Him no high, no low, no great, no small ; 
He fills, He bounds, connects, and equals all." 

His style is pointed, precise, polished. Unlike his 
model, Dryden, he wrote with great care, and elaborated 
and pruned with untiring hand. He knew 

" The last and greatest art, the art to blot." 

Yet, with all his care, some of his lines are rather silly 
when criticised separately. For instance : 

" Why has not man a microscopic eye ? 
For this plain reason — man is not a fly." 

Sydney Smith, the witty English divine, has given us 
a parody of this : 

" Why has not man a collar and a log ? 
For this plain reason — man is not a dog." 

" Why is not man served up with sauce in dish ? 
For this plain reason — man is not a fish." 

Swift and Pope were good friends, and always corre- 
sponded. Both were morbid and misanthropic. Swift 
despised mankind, but liked individuals. Pope tolerated 



152 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

the masses, but hated particular men and women. Their 
letters are sad to read, because there they showed their 
jealousies, and prejudices, and hates. Ci As good friends 
exchange jam, or turkeys, or oysters, these potentates 
occasionally sent each other little pots of gall, or prepara- 
tions of poison, as friendly gifts." 

Pope, when he first met Addison, was his warm ad- 
mirer and humble servant. It was he who wrote the pro- 
logue for " Cato," and he even went so far as to lampoon 
Addison's enemies, in a coarse way, which offended rather 
than pleased his patron. There were other reasons why they 
could not be friends. Addison did like to have all the atten- 
tions and all the praise, and was naturally jealous of the 
rising genius. Then, too, Tickell, his bosom friend, pub- 
lished a translation of " The Iliad " at the same time with 
Pope, which was thought by some to be more scholarly and 
exact, as Pope had never studied at a university. Pope 
accused Addison of helping Tickell in his work, which was 
not true ; but of course there could be no friendship in the 
future. Pope was too indignant to be silent, and the 
verses which he sent to Addison are known to all : 

" And were there one whose fires 
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires — 
Blest with each talent and each art to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease ? 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne ? 
View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes, 
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise ; 
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike ; 
Alike reserved to blame as to commend, 
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend ; 
Dreading even fools, by flatteries besieged, 
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged ; 



POPE. 



153 



Like Cato, gives his little senate laws, 
And sits attentive to his own applause ; 
While wits and templars every sentence raise, 
And wonder with a foolish face of praise ; 
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? 
Who would not weep if Atticus were he ? " 
There is venom in this description, and just enough 
truth to make the libel more effective. How much bet- 
ter and happier a man he might have been if iie had car- 
ried out in his life the beautiful sentiment found in his 
" Universal Prayer : " 

" Teach me to feel another's woe, 
To hide the fault I see ; 
That mercy I to others show, 
That mercv show to me." 




TWICKENHAM. 



You observe the difference between the authors last 
described and Shakespeare? He wrote for all 



men, all 



154 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

countries, and all time. Swift, Addison, Pope, wrote for 
their own time alone, to suit the artificial state of society; 
and you will find little true pathos, humanity, or humor. 
Pope was witty, ingenious, acute, sparkling, sarcastic; 
but he was not a natural poet, and never forgot himself. 
Through all his life he delighted in artifice, and hardly 
drank tea without a stratagem. But his misfortune leads 
us to overlook many faults. He died at Twickenham, on 
the 30th of May, 1744, after a life of incessant ill-health 
and incessant industry, adorned with a greater share of 
fame and honor than often falls to the lot of poets. 




TOU^G. 



"Whom dismal scenes delight, 

Frequent at tombs and in the realms of night." 

Edward Young, whose fame is chiefly due to his 
" Night Thoughts," now little read, but often quoted, was 
a very different man from either the "vitriolic Swift" or 
the sparkling poet we last spoke of. His father was an 
eloquent dean, and preached so well that he was appointed 
chaplain to King William and Queen Mary, and the little 
Edward, who was born in 1681, was honored by having 
the princess royal (afterward Queen Anne) for his god- 
mother. He was educated at All Souls College, Oxford, 
and, though he did not gain a scholarship, Oxford was 
certainly proud of him; for, only two years after his 
graduation, he was appointed to speak a Latin oration at 
the founding of a library there. 



156 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Pope says that Young had much of a sublime genius, 
but lacked common-sense, and genius without that sturdy 
guide is apt to become mere bombast. So he was thought 
a little weak by his friends, who laughed at his foibles, 
while they acknowledged his talent. It is said that he 
was dissipated in his early days, and led a gay, worldly 
life, under the patronage of a notoriously bad man — the 
Duke of Wharton. He may have been badly influenced 
by his profligate friend, but it is also true that he was 
remarkably well read in the Bible, and powerful in answer- 
ing and refuting the arguments of his skeptical friends. 

Tindal, a noted atheist of those days, used to spend 
much of his time at All Souls, and enjoyed discussing 
points of religious controversy with the young men, and 
this is hi* testimony : " The other boys I can always 
answer, because I know where they have their arguments, 
which I have read a hundred times; but that fellow, 
Young, is continually pestering me with something of his 
own." 

Even if Young did try that wicked life, he left it in 
disgust, and, to his praise of virtue, adds a personal expe- 
rience, which taught him to abhor all forms of vice. It 
makes him, perhaps, a better teacher of morality, for, as 
some one says, with great beauty of expression, " Experi- 
ence, like the stern-lights of a ship, only illumines the 
path over which we have passed." Young's great mistake 
in life was his desire to gain the patronage and friendship 
of royalty and the nobility by fawning flattery ; and this 
miserable ambition caused his whole life — and it was a 
long one — to be a series of disappointments and mortifica- 
tions. Thinking, perhaps, that Addison gained his good 
fortune by a complimentary poem addressed to the king, 
" he hoped to soar to wealth and honor on wings of the 
same kind." So his first poem was addressed to Queen 
Anne, praising her in the most extravagant and absurd 



YOUNG. 157 

manner, and his next poem, " On the Last Day," was also 
dedicated to her. I believe he gained nothing by this 
fnlsome flattery but a pension from her majesty, as these 
lines seem to prove in speaking of the court : 

" Whence Gay was banished in disgrace, 
Where Pope could never show his face ; 
Where Young must torture his invention 
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension." 

In 1717 he went to Ireland with his patron, the dis- 
solute Wharton, who was then really kind to him, giving 
him much material aid, but afterward deserted him most 
meanly. The greater part of Young's life was spent in 
an unsuccessful struggle for fame as a courtier and poet. 
At last he retired, disgusted and misanthropic. 

At the age of fifty, he took clerical orders, and passed 
the rest of his days in uneasy retirement, satirizing those 
things he had failed to gain, and to which he ever looked 
back with regret, still making an occasional effort to 
satisfy his darling ambition. These feelings he tried to 
hide in his poems by a veil of dignity and sublime indif- 
ference, which fails to deceive the careful reader. His 
first important work was a satire on the " Love of Fame," 
which he styles the " universal passion," as he might well 
do, if he judged the world by his own longings. This 
satire, divided into seven epistles, is often strong and 
vigorous, with many keen and happy hits ; but he was 
not sufficiently gay, playful, or good-natured, to make it 
quite satisfactory. As Swift remarked, " They should 
have either been more angry or more merry." But they 
were widely circulated, and brought the author more than 
three thousand pounds. Of course, the reign of the new 
monarch was ushered in by Young — ever waiting for a 
favorable moment to advance his own claims — by a com- 
plimentary poem which he styled " Ocean ; an Ode." 



158 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

King George, in his speech when he ascended the throne, 
had recommended the encouragement of the seamen ; and 
the anxious poet and would-be favorite took his cue from 
this circumstance. 

This ode concludes with a " wish," of which I will give 
you a specimen, quoting three of the thirteen stanzas, just 
to show how little we can know of an author's real feelings 
from what he gives to the world as such. The rhymes 
are very bad : 

" may I steal 

Along the vale 
Of humble life, secure from foes ; 

My friend sincere, 

My judgment cl*ear, 
And gentle business my repose. 

" Prophetic schemes, 

And golden dreams, 
May I, unsanguinc, cast away ! 

Have what I have, 

And live, not leave, 
Enamoured of the present day ! 

" My hours my own, 

My faults unknown ! 
My chief revenue in content ! 

Then leave one beam 

Of honest fame, 
And scorn the labored monument ! " 

He hoped to be rewarded by a bishopric, but this was 
withheld on the ground of the poet's extreme devotion to 
retirement, which he had so often expressed! Rather 
hard, wasn't it, for the disappointed man ? Nothing was 
left him, after all his efforts, but to ponder in solitude over 
the folly of writing romantic stuff in which was neither 
sincerity nor heart. Honesty seems the best policy, after 
all, with poets as well as common people. 

Whipple says : "A man of letters is often a man with 



YOUNG. 159 

two natures — one a book nature, the other a human na- 
ture. These often clash sadly. Seneca wrote in praise 
of poverty, on a table formed of solid gold, with two 
millions of pounds let out at usury. Sterne was a very 
selfish man, according to TTarburton, an irreclaimable 
rascal, yet a writer unexcelled for pathos and charity. 
Sir Richard Steele wrote excellently well on temperance, 
when he was sober. Dr. Johnson's essays on politeness 
are admirable ; yet his ' You lie, sir,' and ' You don't un- 
derstand the question, sir,' were too common character- 
istics of his colloquies. He and Dr. Shebbeare were both 
pensioned at the same time. The report immediately flew 
that the king had pensioned two bears — a he-bear and a 
she-bear. Young, whose gloomy fancy cast such sombre 
tinges on life, was in society a brisk, lively man, continually 
pelting his hearers with puerile puns. Mrs. Carter, fresh 
from the stern, dark grandeur of the ' Xight Thoughts,' 
expressed her amazement at his flippancy. ' Madam,' 
said he, 'there is much difference between talking and 
writing.' The same poet's favorite theme was the 
nothingness of worldly things ; his favorite pursuit was 
rank and riches. Had Mrs. Carter noticed this incon- 
gruity, he might have added, 'Madam, there is much 
difference between writing didactic poems and living 
didactic poems.' " 

.In 1730 his college gave him the rectory of Welwyn, 
in Hertfordshire, the only substantial favor he ever re- 
ceived, and that came unasked/ and in May of the next 
year he married a widow, Lady Elizabeth Lee, to whom 
and her two children the poet was tenderly attached. 
This beautiful and lovely lady inspired one of the hap- 
piest and most elegant impromptus ever uttered. 

Dr. Young (we must give him the only title he ever 
gained) was walking in his garden with two ladies, one of 
them Lady Lee. On being called away by a servant to 



160 nOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

speak to a parishioner on some important business, he was 
very unwilling to leave the ladies, and, on being almost 
driven into the house by their gentle violence, he thus 
addressed them : 

*' Thus Adam once at God's command was driven 
From Paradise by angels sent from heaven ; 
Like him I go, and yet to go am loath ; 
Like him I go, for angels drove us both. 
Hard was his fate, but mine still more unkind, 
His Eve went with him, but mine stays behind.' , 

His wife died in 1741, and this, with other domestic 
grief, induced him to write the " Night Thoughts," which 
have been so justly celebrated. In them you will find 
much to admire, and no doubt you have quoted from them 
without being aware of it ; but his style is so solemn, with 
a would-be sublimity that too often approaches bombastic 
unmeaningness, and there is such a lack of connection, 
and sometimes of common-sense, that you will never be 
likely to read it continuously. He has given us many 
proverbs and quotable lines, which are familiar to all. 
For instance : 

" Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep. " 

" Procrastination is the thief of time." 

" All men think all men mortal but themselves." 

" How blessings brighten as they take their flight ! " 

" That life is long which answers life's great end." 

" Death loves a shining mark — a signal blow." 

His last days, like those of too many of our great men, 
were sad and solitary. He is said to have been tyrannized 
over by a virago of a housekeeper, who drove his only 
son from his door, and kept him constantly unhappy. 

He died in 1765, at the age of eighty-four. 



young. 161 

His life was a curious contrast of worldliness and piety, 
luxury and devotion. His affections seemed always di- 
vided between God and Mammon. His book would hardly 
make us happier or better ; his morality is often little bet- 
ter than prudence, and his gloomy truisms often sadden 
without improving. It is no? advisable to give full ex- 
pression to morbid feelings in prose or verse. 

When Young, whose very name seems incongruous, 
was composing his " Thoughts," he would either ramble 
alone among the tombs, or sit in a darkened room, dimly 
lighted by candles. 

Give me the author who loves to write in the sunshine 
among the flowers ; whose object is to soothe and cheer, 
as well as instruct. One of our own poets has spoken in 
a higher and more blessed strain, makiDg us feel that there 
are " Voices of the 2fight " which elevate and console : 

" holy Xight ! from thee I learn to bear 
What man has borne before. 
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, 
And they complain no more." 

Yet we should not be too severe, for we cannot fail to 
find much in the character and writings of Young worthy 
of our admiration, and will close this sketch with the 
words of his biographer, Johnson, who says:- "In spite 
of all his defects, he was a genius and a poet." 




THOMSON. 



11 To him, who in, the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language. 1 ' 

ArTER'Toung, comes the fat, lazy Scotchman, James 
Thomson, whom we always think of as author of " The 
Seasons." 

His father was a good minister of Ednam, in Rox- 
burghshire, and there, in 1700, James was born. The 
good man's family being rather large, nine children in all, 
he found it as much as he could do to feed and clothe 
them, without thinking much of education, and another 
minister, who lived near (perhaps not blessed with so 
many olive-branches), finding James a clever boy, offered 
to take him home, and provide him with all the books he 



THOMSON. 163 

needed. At school, he was not thought a prodigy, excel- 
ling in no one study. But in those early days, he used to 
scribble poetry to amuse his kind friend and his playfel- 
lows ; yet never was quite satisfied with his rhymes, look- 
ing them over every New-Tear' s-Day, only to throw them 
all into the' fire. His friends wanted him to be a min- 
ister, and he was fitting for this profession at Edinburgh, 
with no other prospect for the future than the laborious 
life of a country parson, when he one day astonished his 
grave professor and charmed the class with a remarkably 
beautiful paraphrase of a psalm. His teacher blamed him 
for using language so fine as not to be understood by com- 
mon people, but he cared more for the applause of his 
young friends than the censure of the grave doctor, and, 
coming to the conclusion that he was, by nature, more of 
a poet than preacher, gave up his studies, and soon went 
to London to seek his fortune. This was rather a bold 
step for a green, awkward youth, with neither money nor 
friends, and success did not smile on him at first, as you 
shall see. 

He had secured several letters of recommendation to 
persons who could have helped him greatly, and had tied 
them carefully in the corner of his handkerchief, but London 
streets and London sights so dazzled and dazed the young 
Scotchman, that they were quietly taken from his pocket, 
with every thing else of value there, while he was gaping 
along, quite forgetting what had sent him to so wonderful 
a place. He was so poor, that he was not able to buy a 
pah* of shoes, which he really needed. " But, never mind," 
thought our raw countryman, " I have something in my 
head worthnnore than all the shoes in the city." But light 
did not come at once to- the young adventurer. He 
offered the manuscript of " Winter " to several publishers, 
but no one cared to take it ; at last he found one, who 
bought it at a ridiculously low price — and then regretted 



161 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

that he had not refused it. It appeared in print in 1726. 
All that Thomson now needed was a patron. In those 
days it was not only politic, but absolutely necessary, for 
success, that the poets should cram some rich or powerful 
man with graceful, high-flown compliments, until (with 
very much the same effect as the flattery of the wily fox 
in iEsop's " Fables " had upon the- silly crow, who soon 
drops the coveted bit of cheese), they open the purse- 
strings of the delighted magnate, and climb rapidly into 
favor. Thomson received, in this easy way, twenty 
guineas for a dedication to Sir Spencer Compton, of the 
poem, for which his publisher had thought three guineas 
a good recompense. 

The appearance of " Winter " was a new sensation in 
the literary world. Dame Nature had been comparatively 
neglected for a long time. All the great poets, from 
Chaucer to Milton, had loved to commune with her, but, 
as Hare says, " When Milton lost his eyes, Poetry lost 
hers," and soon came the artificial school, where mountain 
and meadow and moonlight, and " all the forest music of 
an English landscape," were forgotten, and man and the 
town, the drawing-room and candle-light, usurped their 
place. 

Poets" looked at Nature through the spectacles of 
books. " It was as though a number of eyes had been set 
in a row, like boys playing at leap-frog, each hinder one 
having to look through all that stood before it, and, 
hence seeing Nature, not as it is in itself, but refracted 
and distorted by a number of more or less turbid media. 
Ever and anon, too, some one would be seized with the 
ambition of surpassing his predecessors, and would try by 
a feat at leap-eye, to get before them ; in so doing, how- 
ever, from ignorance of the ground, he mostly stumbled 
and fell. Making an impotent effort after originality, he 
would attempt to vary the combination of words in which 



THOMSON. 165 

former writers had spoken of the same objects ; but as 
one is ever liable to trip and to violate idiom at least, 
if not grammar, when speaking a foreign language, so by 
these aliens to Nature, and sojourners in the. land of 
Poetry, images and expressions which belonged to partic- 
ular circumstances, or to particular phases of feeling, 
were often misapplied to circumstances and feelings with 
which they were wholly incongruous. ' When the jay 
spread gut his peacock's tail, many of the quills were 
sticking up in the air.' " 

But those whose opinions were contagious liked " Win- 
ter ; " amateurs sounded the praises of the new poet, who 
now, happy as well as hopeful, soon completed his pano- 
rama of the " varied year." It adds to the charm of these 
poems to know that their author was sincere in his praise 
of Nature, whom he really loved for her own sake. He" 
was in earnest when he wrote this noble stanza : 

"I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; 
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace, 
You cannot shut the windows of the sky, 
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face ; 
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve : 
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, 
And I their toys to the great children leave ; 
Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave." 

How well he sings the loves of the birds in spring : 

" When first the soul of love is sent abroad, 
Warm through the vital air, and on the heart 
Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin 
In gallant thought to plume the painted wing, 
And try again the long-forgotten strain, 
At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows 
The soft infusion prevalent and wide, 
Than, all alive, at once their joy overflows 
In music unconfined. Up springs the lark, 



166 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Shrill ed-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn ; 

Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings 

Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts 

Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse 

Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush 

Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads 

Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, 

Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush 

And wood-lark, o'er the kind-contending throng 

Superior heard, run through the sweetest length 

Of notes ; when listening Philomela deigns 

To let them joy, and purposes, in thought 

Elate, to make her night excel their day. 

The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake ; 

The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove : 

Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze 

Poured out profusely, silent. Joined to these 

Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade 

Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix 

Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw, 

And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, 

Aid the full concert : while the stock-dove breathes 

A melancholy murmur through the whole. 

'Tis love creates their melody, and all 
This waste of music is the voice of love ; 
That e'en to birds, and beasts, the tender arts 
Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind 
Try every winning way inventive love 
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates 
Pour forth their little souls." 

His description also of a man freezing in the winter 
snows is very graphic and pathetic : 

" As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce 
All Winter drives along the darkened air ; 
In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain 
Disastered stands ; sees other hills ascend, 
Of unknown joyless brow ; and other scenes, 
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain ; 
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid 



THOMSON. 167 

Beneath the formless wild ; but wanders on 

From hill to dale, still more and more astray ; 

Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, 

Stung with the thoughts of home ; the thoughts of home 

Eush on his nerves, and call their vigor forth 

In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul ! 

What black despair, what horror fills his heart ! 

When for the dusky spot, which fancy feigned 

His tufted cottage rising through the snow, 

He meets the roughness of the middle waste, 

Far from the track, and blest abode of man : 

While round him night resistless closes fast, 

And every tempest, howling o'er his head, 

Renders the savage wilderness more wild. 

Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, 

Of covered pits, unfathomably deep, 

A dire descent ! beyond the power of frost ; 

Of faithless bogs ; of precipices huge, 

Smoothed up with snow ; and, what is land unknown, 

What water of the still unfrozen spring, 

In the loose marsh or solitary lake, 

WTiere the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. 

These check his fearful steps ; and down he sinks 

Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, 

Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, 

Mixed with the tender anguish nature shoots 

Through the wrung bosom of the dying man — 

His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. 

In vain for him th' officious wife prepares . 

The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm ; 

In vain his little children, peeping out 

Into the mingling storm, demand their sire, 

With tears of artless innocence. Alas ! 

Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold, 

Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve 

The deadly Winter seizes ; shuts up sense ; 

And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, 

Lays him along the snow, a stiffened corse — 

Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast." 

Thomson next tried his pen upon tragedy, but never 
pleased the public. One silly line in his first play — 

8 



168 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" Sopkonisba ! Sophonisba ! " 

was parodied by some wicked wag, and 

" Jemmy Thomson ! Jemmy Thomson ! " 

was sung, and whistled, and echoed, till, from laughing at 
this one blunder, the town ridiculed the whole. This was 
particularly hard on Thomson, who was so intensely anx- 
ious and excited, whenever one of his dramas was put 
on the stage, that he could be heard in an upper gallery; 
reciting word for word with the players, and he said his 
wig actually became uncurled^ from " the sweat of his dis- 
tress ! " 

Not long after this, in 1731, he travelled over the Con- 
tinent, as tutor to the son of the distinguished lawyer, 
Chancellor Talbot, living in luxury, without any expense, 
enjoying, as few have the power to enjoy, all the delights 
and privileges of such a tour. After his return to Eng- 
land, he published a very long poem, in five parts, on 
" Liberty," upon which he had spent two years, which he 
thought his noblest work. But no one agreed with him ; 
few read it then ; it is hardly known now. So little can 
authors judge of the merits of their own works. 

In 1738, being obliged, by the death of his patron, to 
resume work, he wrote two more tragedies, which also 
proved failures. But the Prince of Wales gave him a 
yearly pension of one hundred pounds, and, through the 
influence of a friend, he gained the office of Surveyor- 
General of the Leeward Islands, which yielded him three 
hundred pounds each year — after he had paid some one 
else for doing the work ! He was the very " high-priest 
of indolence," and now, with an abundance of means, he 
spent the last years of his life in a thoroughly lazy way, in 
his pretty cottage at Richmond. " So intensely indolent 
was he, that he is said to have been in the habit, when 
lounging in his dressing-gown, along the sunny walks of 



THOMSON. 169 

his garden, of biting a mouthfal out of the peaches ripen- 
ing on his wall, too lazy to lift his hand to pluck them." 

In this quiet home, with nothing in the world to do, 
he spent several years on his " Castle of Indolence," a 
dreamy, drowsy allegory, written in the style of Spenser, 
the very words of which seem to lull you to repose. 

" A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, 

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, 
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, 
Forever flushing round a summer sky ; 
There eke the soft delights, that witchingly 
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, 
And the calm pleasures, always hovered nigh ; 
And whate'er smacked of 'noyance or unrest 

Was far, far off expelled from that delicious nest." 

"The good knight Industry breaks the magician's 
spell ; but (alas for the moral teaching of the allegory ! ) 
we have grown so delighted with the still and cushioned 
life, whose hours glide slumberously by, that we feel 
almost angry with the restless being who dissolves the 
i delicious charm." I will give a few verses from the open- 
ing of the poem : 

" mortal man, who livest here by toil, 

Do not complain of this thy hard estate ; 

That like an emmet thou must ever moil, 

Is a sad sentence of an ancient date ; 

And, certes, there is for it reason great ; 

For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail, 

And curse thy star, an early drudge and late, 

Withouten that would come a heavier bale, 
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale. 

" In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, 
With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round, 
A most enchanting wizard did abide, 
Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found. 
It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground ; 



170 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

And there, a season atween June and May, 
Half-pranked with spring, with summer half-imbrowned, 
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, 
No living wight could work, ne cared e'en for play. 

" Was naught around but images of rest ; 
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between ; 
And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest, 
From poppies breathed ; and beds of pleasant green, 
Where never yet was creeping creature seen. 
Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played, 
And hurled everywhere their waters sheen ; 
That, as they bickered through the sunny glade, 
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made. 

11 Joined to the prattle of the purling rills, 
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, 
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills, 
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale : 
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail, 
Or stock-doves 'plain amid the forest deep, 
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale ; 
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep ; 
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep. 

" Thither continual pilgrims crowded still, 
From all the roads of earth that pass thereby ; 
For, as they chanced to breathe on neighboring hill, 
The freshness of this valley smote their eye, 
And drew them ever and anon more nigh ; 
Till clustering round th' enchanter false they hung, 
Ymolten with his siren melody ; 
While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung, 

And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung : 

" * Behold ! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold ! 
See all but man with unearned pleasure gay : 
See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, 
Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May ! 
What youthful bride can equal her array ? 
Who can with her for easy pleasure vie ? 
From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, 
From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, 

Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky. 



THOMSON. 171 

" ' Behold the merry minstrels of the morn, 
The swarming songsters of the careless grove, 
Ten thousand throats ! that from the flowering thorn, 
Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love, 
Such grateful kindly raptures them emove : 
They neither plough, nor sow, ne, fit for flail, 
E'er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove ; 
Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale, 

"Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale. 

" ' Come, ye who still the cumbrous load of life 

Push hard up hill ; but as the farthest steep 

You trust to gain, and put an end to strife, 

Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep, 

And hurls your labors to the valley deep, 

Forever vain ; come, and, withouten fee, 

I in oblivion will your sorrows steep, 

Your cares, your toils, will steep you in a sea 
Of fall delight ; oh come, ye weary wights, to me ! 

" ' With me you need not rise at early dawn, 

To pass the joyous day in various stounds; ^ 

Or, louting low, on upstart fortune fawn, 

And sell fair honor for some paltry pounds ; 

Or through the city take your dirty rounds, 

To cheat, and dun, and lie, and visit pay, 

Now flattering base, now giving secret wounds : 

Or prowl in courts of law for human prey, 
In venal senate thieve, or rob on broad highway. 

" ' No cocks, with me, to rustic labor call, 

From village on to village sounding clear : 

To tardy swain no shrill-voiced matron's squall ; 

No dogs, no babes, no wives, to stun your ear ; 

No hammers thump ; no horrid blacksmith fear ; 

No noisy tradesman your sweet slumbers start, 

With sounds that are a misery to hear : 

But all is calm, as would delight the heart 
Of Sybarite of old, all nature, and all art. 

" ' What, what is virtue, but repose of mind, 
A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm : 
Above the reach of wild ambition's wind, ■ 



172 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Above the passions that this world deform, 
And torture man, a proud malignant worm ? 
But here, instead, soft gales of passion play, 
And gently stir the heart, thereby to form 
A quicker sense of joy ; as breezes stray 
Across th' enlivened skies, and make them still more gay. 

" ' The best of men have ever loved repose ; 

They hate to mingle in the filthy fray ; 

Where the soul sours, and gradual rancor grows, 

Imbittered more from peevish day to day. 

E'en those whom Fame has lent her fairest ray, 

The most renowned of worthy wights of yore, 

From a base world at last have stolen away : 

So Scipio, to the soft Cumaean shore 
Retiring, tasted joy he never knew before. 

" ' Oh, grievous folly ! to heap up estate, 
Losing the days you see beneath the sun ; 
When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting fate, 
And gives th' untasted portion you have won, 
With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone, 
To those who mock you gone to Pluto's reign, 
There with sad ghosts to pine, and shadows dun : 
But sure it is of vanities most vain, 

To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain.' " 

Thomson's friend Lyttleton contributed one stanza to 
this poem, containing a portrait of its author : 

u A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems, 

Who, void of envy, guile, and lust of gain, 

On virtue still, and nature's pleasing themes, 

Poured forth his unpremeditated strain ; 

The world forsaking with a calm disdain, 

Here laughed he careless in his easy seat ; 

Here quaffed,, encircled with the joyous train, 

Oft moralizing sage ; his ditty sweet, 
He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat." 

Thomson wrote in various styles, but excelled in descrip- 
tion. He has given us many noble thoughts, beautifully 



THOMSON. 173 

and vigorously expressed. In regard to the true end of 
life, he says : 

" Who, who would like, my Narva, just to breathe 
This idle air, and indolently run, 
Day after day, the still returning round 
Of life's mean offices and sickly joys ? 
But in the service of mankind to be 
A guardian god below ; still to employ 
The mind's brave ardor, in heroic arms, 
Such as may raise us o'er the grovelling herd, 
And make us shine forever — that- is life !" 

Of Providence : — 

" There is a power 
Unseen that rules the illimitable world, 
That guides its motions, from the brightest star 
To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould ; 
While man, who madly deems himself the lord 
Of all, is naught but weakness and dependence. 
This sacred truth, by sure experience taught, 
Thou must have learned when wandering all alone ; 
Each bird, each insect, flitting through the sky, 
Was more sufficient for itself than thou." 

He had at least one romance in life, being at one time 
deeply in love with a Miss Amanda Somebody, whose 
mother did not fancy him as a husband for her daughter, 
as he was " nothing but a poet ; " and he told his sorrows 
in several very sentimental songs : 

" For once, Fortune, hear my prayer, 
And I absolve thy future care ; 
All other blessings I resign, 
Make hut the dear Amanda mine I " 

But cruel Fortune and Amanda's mother paid no atten- 
tion to his sighs and sentiment. It is said that the young 
lady fainted when told of his death ; but, as she soon after 
married a gallant admiral, I presume she was not so sadly 
*in earnest as the poor poet. 



174 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

I find one humorous poem, " The Barber's Nuptials," 
quite in the vein of Thomas Hood and the witty rhymers 
of our own day : 

"THE BARBER'S NUPTIALS. 

" In Liquor-pond Street, as is well known to many, 
An artist resided, who shaved for a penny; 
Cut hair for three-halfpence ; for three pence he bled, 
And would draw for a groat every tooth in your head. 

11 What annoyed other folks never spoiled his repose, 
'Twas the same thing to him whether stocks fell or rose ; 
For blast and for mildew he cared not a pin, 
His crops never failed, for they grew on the chin ! 

" Unvexed by the cares that ambition and state has, 
Contented he dined on his daily potatoes ; 
And the pence that he earned by excision of bristle, 
Were nightly devoted to wetting his whistle. 

" When copper ran low he made light of the matter, 
Drank his purl upon tick at the old Pewter Platter ; 
Read the news, and as deep in the secret appeared 
As .if he had lathered the minister's beard. 

" But Cupid, who trims men of every station, 
And 'twixt barbers and beaux makes no discrimination, 
Would not let this superlative shaver alone, 
Till he tried if his heart was as hard as his hone 

" The fair one whose charms did the barber inthrall, 
At the end of Fleet-market, of fish kept a stall ; 
As red as her cheek was no lobster e'er seen, 
Not an eel that she sold was so soft as her skin. 

" By love strange effects have been wrought, we are told, 
In all countries and climates, hot, temperate, or cold ; 
Thus the heart of our barber love scorched like a coal, 
Though 'tis very well known he lived under the pole. 

" First, he courted his charmer in sorrowful fashion, 
And lied like a lawyer to move her compassion ; 



THOMSON. 175 

He should perish, he swore, did his suit not succeed, 
And a barber to slay was a barbarous deed. 

" Then he altered his tone, and was heard to declare, 
If valor deserved the regard of the fair, 
That his courage was tried, though he scorned to disclose 
How many brave fellows he'd took by the nose. 

" For his politics, too, they were thoroughly known, 
A patriot he was to the very backbone ; 
Wilkes he gratis had shaved for the good of the nation, 
And he held the Whig club in profound veneration. 

"'For his tenets religious — he could well expound 
Emanuel Swedenborg's myst'ries profound, 
And new doctrines could broach with the best of 'em all, 
For a periwig-maker ne'er wanted a caul. 

" Indignant she answered: 'No chin-scraping sot 
Shall be fastened to me by the conjugal knot ; 
No ! to Tyburn repair, if a noose you must tie, 
Other fish I have got, Mr. Tonsor, to fry: 

" { Holborn-bridge and Blackfriars my triumphs can tell, 
From Billingsgate beauties I've long borne the bell ; 
Nay, tripemen and fishmongers vie for my favor : 
Then d'ye think I'll take up with a two-penny shaver? 

" ' Let dory, or turbot the sov'reign of fish, 

Cheek by jowl with red-herring be served in one dish ; 
Let sturgeon and sprats in one pickle unite, 
When I angle for husbands, and barbers shall bite.' 

" But the barber persisted (ah, could I relate 'em !) 
To ply her with compliments soft as pomatum ; 
And took every occasion to flatter and praise her, 
Till she fancied his wit was as keen as his razor. 

" He protested, besides, if she'd grant his petition, 
She should live like a lady of rank and condition ; 
And to Billingsgate market no longer repair, 
But himself all her business would do to a hair. 
8* 



176 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" Her smiles, he asserted, would melt even rocks, 
Nay, the fire of her eyes would consume barbers' blocks ; 
On insensible objects bestow animation, 
And give to old periwigs regeneration. 

" With fair speeches cajoled, as you'd tickle a trout, 
'Gainst the barber the fish-wife no more could hold out; 
He applied the right bait, and with flattery he caught her, 
Without flattery a female's a fish out of water. 

" The state of her heart, when the barber once guessed, 
Love's siege with redoubled exertion he pressed, 
And as briskly bestirred him, the charmer embracing, 
As the wash-ball that dances and froths in bis basin. 

" The flame to allay that their bosoms did so burn, 
They set out for the church of St. Andrew in Holborn, 
Where tonsors and trulls, country Dicks and their cousins, 
In the halter of wedlock are tied up by dozens. 

" The nuptials to grace, came from every quarter, 
The worthies at Rag-fair, old caxons who barter, 
Who the coverings of judges' and counsellors' nobs 
Cut down into majors, queues, scratches, and bobs. 



" From their voices united such melody flowed, 
As the Abbey ne'er witnessed, nor Tott'nham Court-road ; 
While St. Andrew's brave bells did so loud and so clear ring, 
You'd have given ten pounds to 've been out of their hearing. 

" For his fee, when the parson*this couple had joined, 
As no cash was forthcoming, he took it in kind : 
So the bridegroom dismantled his rev'rence's chin, 
And the bride entertained him with pilchards and gin." 

Thomson was a wonderfully good-natured man, and so 
patient that, even when his friends bribed his servants to 
annoy him, he was never known to lose his temper. He 
did not live long to enjoy his peaceful home, for, taking 
cold from a boat-ride after a long walk one August after- 



THOMSON. 



177 



noon, a fever ensued, which proved fatal. The year of 
his death was 1748. It was of him that Lord Lyttleton 
said, he left 

"No line which, dying, he could wish to blot." 




THOMSON'S COTTAGE. 



;llii!fciisi& 







Bfffl? 




7a-<f 



GEAT. 



" A heart, within whose sacred cell, 
The peacefal virtues loved to dwell." 

Thomas Gray, of all English poets perhaps the most 
finished artist, was born in that noisy part of London, 
Cornhill, on a December's day, in 1716. 

His father, like Milton's, was a scrivener, but, unlike 
that good man, failed to make his home happy — in fact, 
drove his wife away from it by his harshness and ill-tem- 
per. She was a noble, energetic woman, as are almost all 



GRAY. 179 

the mothers of the good and great, and, when forced to 
separate from her husband, at once opened a millinery 
store, with her sister for a partner, supporting herself and 
her children. She had a large family, twelve in all, but 
all except Thomas died in infancy from suffocation, caused 
by a fullness of blood. He, too, was attacked in the same 
terrible way, and was only saved by his mother's courage 
and devotion, for she opened a vein in his neck with her. 
own hand, thus bringing him back from the very grasp of 
death. 

" Her brother being a master at Eaton, the lad went 
there, and soon found among his school-fellows young 
Horace Walpole, with whom he soon struck up a close 
friendship. Many a time no doubt Walpole, Gray, and 
"West, another chum of the scrivener's son, did their Latin 
verses together, and many a golden summer evening they 
passed merrily with bat and ball in the meadows of the 
smoothly-flowing Thames." 

In his nineteenth year Gray was admitted pensioner at 
Cambridge, maintained both at school and college by the 
industry of his mother. But he did not enjoy the three 
years he spent at Cambridge, and complained, in a serio- 
comic way, of the course of study there : " Must I pore 
into metaphysics ? Alas ! I cannot see in the dark. Na- 
ture has not furnished me with the optics of a cat. Must 
I pore into mathematics ? Alas ! I cannot see in too much 
light. I am no eagle. It is very possible that two and 
two make four, but I would not give four farthings to 
demonstrate this ever so clearly, and if these be the profits 
of life, give me the amusements of it." He gave almost 
all his time to the languages, ancient and modern, writing 
a little poetry now and then. 

Walpole was with him also at college, and when Gray 
left, in 1739, his friend proposed that they should visit the 
Continent in company. They did travel together through 



180 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

France and Italy, but soon had a serious quarrel, which 
led to their separation. Two men so utterly unlike could 
hardly be intimate for any length of time. Walpole was 
an elegant lounger, a dilettante in arts and letters ; 
clever, but conceited and haughty — " the most eccentric, 
the most artificial, the most fastidious, the most capricious 
of men." These four rather uncomplimentary superlatives 
are borrowed from Macaulay, the brilliant essayist, who 
also gives a very graphic account of his character and life. 
He says : " The conformation of his mind was such, that 
whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever 
was great seemed to him little; serious business was a 
trifle to him, and trifles were his serious business. To 
chat with blue-stockings; to write little complimentary 
verses on little occasions ; to superintend a private press ; 
to record divorces and bets ; to decorate a grotesque house 
with pie-crust battlements ; to procure rare engravings 
and antique chimney-boards ; to match odd gauntlets ; 
to lay out a maze of walk within five acres of ground — 
these were the grave employments of his long life. From 
these he turned to politics, as an amusement. After the 
labors of the print-shop and the auction-room, he unbent 
his mind in the House of Commons ; and, after having in- 
dulged in the recreation of making laws and voting mill- 
ions, he returned to more important pursuits — to re- 
searches after Queen Mary's comb, Wolsey's red hat, the 
pipe which Van Tromp smoked during his last sea-fight, 
and the spur which King William struck in the flank of 
Sorrel." 

Of course, there could be no real sympathy between 
these men. The poet was a studious traveller deeply 
interested in architecture, painting, sculpture, and music ; 
comparing carefully, as Addison had done, the state of 
the countries through which he passed, with the descrip- 
tions given of them by ancient authors ; writing a minute 
account of every thing. 



GRAY. 181 

Walpole had no wish to change his pleasure-trip into 
a season of severe mental labor, and says : " The quarrel 
between Gray and me arose from his being too serious a 
companion. I had just broke loose from the restraints of 
the university, with as much money as I could spend, and 
was willing to indulge myself. Gray was for antiquities, 
whilst I was for perpetual balls and plays. The fault 
was mine." 

Walpole was a great talker, frivolous and vivacious, 
and alive to the merest whiff of gossip, which he knew 
well how to adorn and magnify, and he declared Gray to 
be the worst company in the world, measuring and choos- 
ing all his words. 

After Gray returned from his solitary tour, he went 
back to Cambridge, where he passed a most quiet, un- 
eventful life. He liked much better to read than com- 
pose, and was attracted there by the valuable libraries. 
Of course the day's routine was very monotonous : " Read- 
ing here, reading there, nothing but books with different 
sauces." He said in one of his charming letters, about 
this time, " that his life was like Harry the Fourth's sup- 
per of hens, roast chicken, chicken-ragout, chicken boiled, 
and chicken fricassee." 

In a letter to his old classmate and constant friend, 
Mr. West, he says : " When you have seen one of my 
days, you have seen a whole year of my life; they go 
round and round like the blind horse in the mill, only he 
has the satisfaction of fancying he makes a progress, and 
gets over some ground. My eyes are open enough to see 
the same dull prospect, and to know that, having made four- 
and-twenty steps more, I shall be just where I was ; I 
may, better than most people, say my life is but a span, 
were I not afraid lest you should not believe that a 
person so short-lived could write even so short a letter as 
this." 



182 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

It was necessary for him to economize, and his ex- 
penses were smaller here than elsewhere. Here is one of 
his philosophical reflections on that point : " It is a foolish 
thing that, without money, one cannot either live as one 
pleases, or when and with whom one pleases. Swift 
somewhere says, that ' money is liberty,' and I fear that 
money is friendship too and society, and almost every ex- 
ternal blessing. It is a great though an ill-natured com- 
fort, to see most of those who have it in plenty, without 
pleasure, without liberty, and without friends." 

In 1742, he wrote with unusual zeal, delighting his 
special friends with an " Ode on Spring," another on a 
" Distant Prospect of Eton College," and a " Hymn to 
Adversity," but these were not published until some years 
later. The second of these I give you : 

" ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. 

" Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, 

That crown the watery glade, 
Where grateful Science still adores 

Her Henry's holy shade ; 
And ye, that from the stately brow 
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below 

Of grove, of lawn, of mead, survey, 
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among 
Wanders the hoary Thames along 

His silver-winding way. 

" Ah, happy hills ! ah, pleasing shade ! 

Ah, fields beloved in vain ! 
Where once my careless childhood strayed, 

A stranger yet to pain ! 
I feel the gales that from ye blow 
A momentary bliss bestow, 

As waving fresh their gladsome wing ; 
My weary soul they seem to soothe, 
And, redolent of joy and youth, 

To breathe a second spring. 



GRAY. 183 



" Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen 

Full many a sprightly race, 
Disporting on thy margent green, 

The paths of pleasure trace; 
Who foremost now delight to cleave, 
With pliant arm, thy glassy wave ? 

The captive linnet which inthrall ? 
What idle progeny succeed 
To chase the rolling circle's speed, 

Or urge the flying ball ? 

" While some, on earnest business bent, 

Their murmuring labors ply 
'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint 

To sweeten liberty : 
Some bold adventurers disdain 
The limits of their little reign, 

And unknown regions dare descry: 
Still as they run they look behind, 
They hear a voice in every wind, 

And snatch a fearful joy. 

" Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed, 

Less pleasing when possest; 
The tear forgot as soon as shed, 

The sunshine of the breast : 
Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue, 
Wild wit, invention ever new, 

And lively cheer, of vigor born ; 
The thoughtless day, the easy night, . 
The spirits pure, the slumbers light, 

That fly the approach of morn. 

" Alas ! regardless of their doom, 

The little victims play ; 
No sense have they of ills to come, 

Nor care beyond to-day : 
Yet see how all around them wait 
The ministers of human fate, 

And black Misfortune's baleful train ! 
Ah, show them where in ambush stand, 
To seize their prey, the murtherous band ! 

Ah, tell them they are men ! 



184 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" These shall the fury Passions tear, 

The vultures of the mind, 
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, 

And Shame that skulks behind ; 
Or pining Love shall waste their youth, 
Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth, 

That inly gnaws the secret heart ; 
And Envy wan, and faded Care, 
Grim-visaged, comfortless Despair, 

And Sorrow's piercing dart. 

" Ambition this shall tempt to rise, 

Then whirl the wretch from high 
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, 

And grinning Infamy. 
The stings of Falsehood those shall try, 
And hard Unkindness' altered eye, 

That mocks the tear it forced to flow ; 
And keen Remorse with blood defiled, 
And moody Madness laughing wild 

Amid severest woe. 

M Lo ! in the vale of years beneath 

A griesly troop are seen, 
The painful family of Death, 

More hideous than their queen : 
This racks the joints, this fires the veins, 
That every laboring sinew strains, 

Those in the deeper vitals rage : 
Lo ! Poverty, to fill the band, 
That numbs the soul with icy hand, 

And slow-consuming Age. 

" To each his sufferings : all are men, 
Condemned-alike to groan ; 

The tender for another's pain, 
Th' unfeeling for his own. 

Yet, ah ! why should they know their fate, 

Since sorrow never comes too late, 
* And happiness too swiftly flies ? 

Thought would destroy their paradise. 

No more ; — where ignorance is bliss, 
'Tis folly to be wise." 



GRAY. 185 

We have nothing from his pen again until 1747, when 
he immortalized Mr. Walpole's favorite cat in an ode. 
Poor Selima fell into a tub, from which she had intended 
to take out a few gold fishes, and, sad to . tell, found a 
watery grave. Tou will like to read the story : 

" 'Twas on a lofty vase's side, 
Where China's gayest art had dyed 

The azure flowers that blow. 
Demurest of the tabby kind, 
The pensive Selima reclined, 

Gazed on the lake below. 

" Her conscious tail her joy declared, 
The fair round face, the snowy beard, 

The velvet of her paws : 
Her coat that with the tortoise vies, 
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, 

She saw, and purred applause. 

" Still had she gazed ; but midst the tide 
Two angel forms were seen to glide, 

The Genii of the stream. 
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue, 
Through richest purple to the view, 

Betrayed a golden gleam. 

" The hapless nymph with wonder saw ; 
A whisker first, and then a claw, 

With many an ardent wish, 
She stretched in vain to reach the prize : 
What female heart can gold despise, 

What cat's averse to fish ? 

" Presumptuous maid !* with books intent, 
Again she stretched ; again she bent, 

Nor knew the gulf between : 
(Malignant Fate sat by and smiled), 
The slippery verge her feet beguiled, 

She tumbled headlong in. 

" Eight times emerging from the flood, 
She mewed to every watery god 



186 HOME PICTTJEES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Some speedy aid to send. 
No dolphin came, no nereid stirred, 
A fav'rite has ho friend. 

" From hence, ye beauties undeceived, 
Know one false step is ne'er retrieved, 

And be with caution bold. 
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes, 
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize, 

Nor all that glisters gold." 

After Gray's death, Walpole placed the china vase on 
a pedestal at Strawberry Hill, with a few lines of the 
ode for an inscription. 

The "Elegy in a Country Churchyard " was given to the 
world in 1750, and was at once admired and appreciat- 
ed, running through eleven editions. This perfect poem 
needs no praise of mine. Words seem miserable inter- 
preters of the hold that, elegy has upon the world. There 
have been more than fifty translations of the poem : into 
French, fifteen ; into Italian, thirteen ; into German, six ; 
into Latin, twelve ; into Greek, eight ; into Hebrew, one ;. 
into Portuguese, one. At least eight years were spent by 
Gray in elaborating it. 

Dr. Adam Smith says: " Gray joins to the sublimity 
of Milton the elegance and harmony of Pope, and nothing 
is wanting to render him, perhaps, the first poet of Eng- 
land, but to -have written a little more" 

I cannot do better than give you the first nine verses, 
hoping you may be tempted to read the rest, if you have 
not already done it, and then commit the whole to memory. 
Look at the third line of the first verse, and see how many 
different ways you can arrange the words, and yet keep 
the same idea : 

" The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, 
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 



GEAY. 187 

" Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; 

" Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, 
The moping owl does to the moon complain 
Of such as, wa'hdering near her secret bower, 
Molest her ancient solitary reign. 

" Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, 
Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

" The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, 

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

" For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
Or busy housewife ply her evening care : 
No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 

" Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; 
How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! 

" Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
The short and simple annals of the poor. 

" The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power, 

And all that Beauty, all that "Wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike the inevitable hour. 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

Three years after the publication of this poem, to 
which he owes his fame, he lost the dear mother whom 
he had so long, so tenderly loved. She was an old lady, 
almost seventy-three, but Gray never failed to treat her 



188 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

with the sincerest reverence and affection. Her epitaph, 
written by himself, is too formal to show his deep sorrow 

at his loss : 

" Beside her Friend and Sister, 

Here sleep the Remains 

of 

DOROTHY GRAY, . 

Widow ; the careful, tender Mother 

Of many Children : one of whom alone 

Had the misfortune to survive her." 

His life was now very solitary. He had been accus- 
tomed to spend a part at least of each summer with his 
mother, and he often wrote to her. Now he was alone, 
and you can see his mood by the tone of his letters : " I 
cannot boast at present either of my spirits or my situation 
— my employments or fertility. The days and the nights 
pass, and I am never the nearer to any thing but that one 
to which we all are hastening; .yet I love people that 
leave some traces of their journey behind them, and have 
strength enough to advise you to do so while you can." 

He would doubtless have remained in his quiet cham- 
bers all his life, if some gay young men in adjoining rooms 
had not fairly driven him away with their frequent revels 
and noisy demonstrations. They amused themselves at 
last by playing a practical joke on the sensitive recluse, 
and this was more than he could endure. He was remark- 
ably timid in regard to fire, and always kept a rope-ladder 
in his bedroom. These mischievous fellows, knowing this 
weakness, roused him one dark night with the cry of fire ! 
shouting that "the staircase was all in flames ! Up went 
the window, down went the ladder, out scrambled the 
poor, frightened poet, only to jump into a tub of cold 
water, carefully placed on the ground to receive him. He 
never forgave the insult, and soon removed to Pembroke 
Hall. This he describes as " an era " in a life so barren 
of events. 



GRAY. 189 

In 1757 appeared two more odes, "The Progress of 
Poesy " and " The Bard," considered by some critics the 
triumphs of his genius. But they are not so • generally 
popular as " The Elegy," and were considered too fine to 
be intelligible by the common reader when they came out. 
It was in this year, too, that he did an almost unheard-of 
thing — refused the laureateship — giving his reason in these 
words : " The office has always humbled the possessor ; if 
he was a poor writer, by making him more conspicuous ; 
if he were a good one, by setting him at war with the little 
fry of his own profession." 

Perhaps he thought of Swift's rough rhyme, which 
contains the same idea : 

" If on Parnassus' top you sit, 
You rarely bite, are always bit ; 
Each poet of inferior size 
On you shall rail and criticise, 
And strive to tear you limb from limb, 
While others do the same for him." 

He had been so long in a monkish twilight among his 
books, and music, and valued relics, that he dreaded the 
full sunlight of a prominent position. 

In 1768 he was appointed to the Professorship of Mod- 
ern History at Cambridge, a place he had tried in vain 
to gain several years before. But he never gave any 
lectures , although always resolving to do his duty, and 
always' mourning ovef his inefficiency. Ill-health was, no 
doubt, the cause of this failure. 

Immediately after his appointment he went on a tour 
to the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, keeping, as 
usual, an elegant and lively journal to amuse his friends. 
But he was at heart very solitary. He says : " Happy they 
that can create a rose-tree, or plant a honeysuckle : that 
can watch the brood of a hen, or "see a fleet of their own 
ducklings launch into the water; it is with a sentiment 



190 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

of envy I speak it, who never shall have even a thatched 
roof of my own, nor gather a strawberry hut in Covent 
Garden." 

His spirits became more and more depressed, full of 
regrets that he had not accomplished more as a poet. 

Long a sufferer from the gout, he died at last from 
that painful disease, after six days of intense suffering, at 
the age of fifty-five. 

By his own request he was buried near his mother, to 
whom he was so tenderly attached ; and, by a wish ex- 
pressed in his will, the sum of ten pounds was given to 
the poor in his parish on the day of his funeral. 

He was a profound scholar, perhaps the most learned 
man in Europe ; indeed, his fund of knowledge seemed 
inexhaustible. He was well read in every branch of his- 
tory ; in metaphysics, morals, criticism, politics, and natu- 
ral history; was ardently devoted to painting, music, 
architecture, and yet found time to devote to heraldry and 
antiquities. He was even an expert in the science of 
cookery. 

Mackintosh says, " He was the first discoverer of the 
beauties of nature in England, and has marked out the 
course of every picturesque journey that can be made in 
it." 

Mason declares that, " excepting the pure mathemat- 
ics, and the studies dependent on that science, there was 
hardly any part of human learning in which he had not 
acquired a competent skill; in most of them a consum- 
mate mastery." 

He was a perfect master of the English language in 
prose as well as poetry. 

Cowper said : " I have been reading Gray's works, and 
think him sublime. I once thought Swift's letters the 
best that could be written ; but I like Gray's better. His 
humor or wit, or whatever it is to be called, is never ill- 



GRAY. 



191 



natured or offensive, and yet, I think, equally poignant 
with the dean's." * 

He certainly deserves almost distinguished position, 
and, after Milton and Shakespeare, Chaucer and Spenser, 
there is perhaps no one with a better claim to the fifth 
place among our English poets than Thomas Gray. 




gkat's house at stoke 




JOHNSON. 



"Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner; but no man alive has 
a more tender heart." 

Nearly a hundred years ago, in a retired court in 
Fleet Street, London, might be found a little family com- 
posed of individuals so odd, grotesque, and unique, that 
it would be impossible to find their parallel in the history 
of civilized society. 

Let us look in upon them at breakfast, about ten 
o'clock in the forenoon. The central figure possesses a 
colossal frame, long, shambling legs, a repulsive face, 
scarred with scrofula, one eye sightless and disfigured, the 
other feeble and blinking ; his clothes seem to have been 
hung upon him as rags are wrapped about a scarecrow, 
his shirt-collar loose, the linen of which originally white — 
but here imagination must come to our aid; — the little 



johnsox. 193 

black wig all askew, his knee-buckles and shoeties flutter- 
ing as he moves, his whole appearance showing utter in- 
difference to the eleg%neies of life. He gulps down his 
tea as though his throat were the race-way of an ordinary 
mill. All his motions are clumsy, heavy, and awkward. 
No stranger could begin to guess correctly who or what 
he was. Nothing about his person showed that the 
greatest intellect of his age dwelt in that unsightly body. 
His household are equally unattractive. An humble doc- 
tor, poor in purse, slight in skill, threadbare in dress, but 
of spotless character, served as cup-bearer to the lord of 
the mansion, who has thus characterized him in a poetic 
tribute of surpassing beauty : 

" In misery's darkest caverns known, 
His useful care was ever nigh, 
Where hopeless anguish poured its groan, 
And lonely want retired to die. 



" His virtues walked their narrow round, 
Nor made a pause, nor left a word ; 
And sure th' Eternal Maker found 
The single talent well employed.'' 

The other inmates of this singular abode were a poor, 
blind woman, entirely dependent upon the charity of the 
owner, yet peevish, querulous, and impudent ; another 
decayed gentlewoman, also old and friendless, sharing the 
bounty of the householder, and a single negro-servant, who 
w r as " Jack-of-all-trades." 

About four o'clock in the afternoon, you might have 
seen the same ungainly figure pacing the streets of the 
city, in quest of a dinner at the " Mitre." He moves with 
an absent, melancholy air, with a heavy tread and rolling 
gait, jostling the porters and market-women as he passes, 
muttering strange thoughts, like a madman, touching 
every post as he goes, and, on arriving at his place of 



194 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

destination, stopping a moment to decide which foot to 
place first on the threshold, in order to secure a good 
omen and cordial welcome. Sestad at table, with two or 
three admirers, he devotes himself to the wants of the 
inner man, giving no heed to what those around him say 
or think. He swallows his food with the ravenous eager- 
ness of a famished wolf. After his repast, he gives him- 
self to the entertainment of his friends. They hang upon 
his lips, every word is treasured in memory, or written 
down upon the spot. If at midnight, of the same day, 
you were to look into the most brilliant literary club 
which ever met within the precincts of the first city in the 
world, you would find the same singular personage in the 
foreground of a group of eager and excited listeners, dis- 
coursing in tones of authority, like Jove uttering his un- 
alterable decrees to a " council of gods on Olympus." 
If any one fails to see the force or application of one 
of these dicta, and ventures to say so, you hear a gruff 
growl, followed by a thunderous " Sir, it is my business 
to give you arguments, not to give you brains ! " — and the 
questioner is knocked down with the butt-end of the 
pistol. Such was Samuel Johnson, the greatest genius, 
'the most original man of his age. Thanks to his most 
devoted admirer, Boswell, we now know almost as much 
of his life as did he himself, and can follow him from his 
cradle to his grave. 

His father was a poor bookseller in the provincial 
town of Lichfield; a man of apparent good health, yet 
constitutionally " blue," who used to read every book dis- 
played on his stall, but never made much by selling them. 
He must have been punctual, for little Samuel was bap- 
tized on the very day of his birth. He was an awkward, 
clumsy child, with features originally good, but distorted 
by disease. There was a silly superstition in those days, 
that if a person so afflicted could be touched by the hand 



johxsox. 195 

of royalty he would be instantly cured — hence the name 
" King's Evil." So his distressed mother, full of faith and 
hope, carried him to London, and Queen Anne did really 
try her power of healing by " laying on of hands ; " but 
of course it was all in vain. When asked in after-years 
if he could remember the event, he said he had a " con- 
fused but somehow solemn recollection of a lady in dia- 
monds and a long black hood." 

His mother did something much more sensible than 
this — she used to talk and pray with her boy in a way 
that he never forgot ; and her simple definition of " heaven 
as a place where good people go, and hell a place where 
bad people go," never faded from his mind. He was 
always an independent, impetuous, spunky little fellow ; 
and when but three years old, was seen perched on his 
father's shoulder in a crowded cathedral, listening to a 
famous preacher of that day. " He would not stay at 
home," and seemed perfectly happy in his exalted posi- 
tion, looking at the great divine. 

His disease made him almost blind in one eye, and he 
was often led to and from school by a servant. Happen- 
ing one evening to return alone, he got down on his hands 
and knees to ascertain the width of the kennel before 
daring to cross it. His teacher, seeing his trouble, fol- 
lowed at a little distance to be sure of his safety. * Find- 
ing that he was thus watched, he felt so insulted that he 
ran back in high rage, and beat her as hard as he could. 

There is a story that when a mere child he chanced to 
tread upon a duckling, the eleventh of a brood, and killed 
it ; upon which he dictated to his mother the following 
epitaph : 

11 Here lies good master duck, 
Whom Samuel Johnson trod on ; 
If it had lived, it had been good luck, 
For then we'd had an odd one ! " 



196 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

But Boswell disputes this on Johnson's authority, who 
told him that his father made the verses, and wished to 
pass them for his. He said : " My father was a foolish 
old man; that is to say, foolish in talking of his children." 

He studied Latin first at a Lichfield school, with a Mr. 
Hunter, who whipped his pupils not only when they did 
not know their lessons, but when they failed to answer 
every question he might choose to ask. He would say 
to Tom or Dick, "What is the Latin for candlestick?" 
If the boy could not answer, then came the flogging. In 
after-life, Johnson actually expressed gratitude for this 
rather severe way of giving instruction. "My master 
whipped me very well : without that, sir, I should have 
done nothing." He was a great favorite at school; al- 
ways far ahead of the others ; rather noisy and fond of 
talking, but ever ready to help those who could not learn 
their lessons by looking them over once or twice, as he 
did, for his memory was wonderful. His school-mates 
used to treat him with great respect — partly because he 
was so clever, and partly in hope of his aid in future. 
They would often carry him in their arms and on their 
backs all the way to school. He was unable to enter into 
their sports, and liked much better to saunter in the fields, 
or sit quietly and read, than to play with ball or marbles. 

For several years after leaving school he devoted him- 
self to reading — any thing, every thing that came in his 
way, so that when he went to Oxford in his nineteenth year, 
he was better fitted for the university than if he had gone 
through a regular drill. At the age of fifty-four he said : 
" Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a sad 
reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at 
eighteen as I now do ; my judgment, to be sure, was not 
so good, but I had all the facts." This shows how intense 
must have been his application to books in early life, and 
how wonderful his success in acquiring knowledge. He 



johxsox. 197 

had no regular plan for study ; it was never the same for 
two days together. He believed that a young man should 
read what he liked to read, but as much as five hours each 
day. 

During his first year in college, he translated Pope's 
"Messiah " into Latin verse, in a manner that gained him 
great praise, and raised him in the estimation of all. He 
now began to feel the misery of that depression which 
had constantly clouded his father's life, and was to dog 
his own steps till death, giving him a fear of coming in- 
sanity hard to endure. He speaks of this as a "vile 
melancholy, which kept him mad half his life, or at least 
not sober." 

He was rather unruly when in college, treating no one 
with respect, considered gay and frolicsome by his class- 
mates, a ringleader in every riot. But his poverty and 
pride had much to do with this. He said, of that time : 
" Ah, sir, I was mad and violent ; it was bitterness which 
they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I 
thought to fight my way by my literature and wit, so I 
disregarded all power and authority." He is but another 
instance of that pithy remark of an old writer, that " no 
great work, or worthy of praise, or memory, but came out 
of poor cradles." 

But, although embarrassed by debts, he was indepen- 
dent as ever, and scorned to accept charity. A pair of new 
shoes were once set at his door, but, although needing 
them sadly, he threw them away in anger. Pity was as 
hard to endure as ridicule. 

His father was so unfortunate, in 1731, as to lose the 
little property he possessed by some speculation, and 
Johnson was obliged to leave college in the autumn with- 
out his degree, having been there a little more than three 
years. The old man died in the following December, 
leaving his son almost penniless. A prayer in his diary, 



198 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

about this time, contains a petition that "his poverty 
may not lead him into crime." In this forlorn condition 
he became usher in a school in a neighboring town, walk- 
ing there to save his coach-fare. The routine and 
drudgery of a teacher's life were irksome to him, proving 
as " unvaried as the notes of a cuckoo." Leaving in dis- 
gust, he went soon after to Birmingham, to try to earn a 
few guineas by translating for a bookseller. 

While thus vagrant and lonely, he fell in love in 
the strangest way (the only sign I ever saw of that in- 
sanity which he so much dreaded), wooing and winning, 
without the least difficulty, a coarse, fat woman, w T ho 
painted her cheeks, dressed in shocking taste, and talked 
in the most affected way, the dowdy widow of a Mr. Por- 
ter, one of Johnson's early friends. He could not be ac- 
cused of marrying for money, for she was as poor as him- 
self. There is no doubt that he really loved her, and 
thought her a beauty, petting her in his own clumsy, 
elephantine manner, with all the ardor and sincerity of a 
more graceful lover. The daughter of this lady says, 
that, when Johnson first called upon her mother, his ap- 
pearance was very forbidding. " He was then lean and 
lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously 
striking to the eye, and the scars of scrofula were deeply 
visible. He also wore his hair stiff and straight, and 
parted behind, and he often had seemingly convulsive 
starts and odd gesticulations, which tended at once to ex- 
cite surprise and ridicule." But the red-faced widow had 
good sense after all, for she never cared for these external 
disadvantages, and thought him the most agreeable man 
she had ever seen in her life. They must have been a 
queer couple — 

" He like a mile in length, 
And she like a mile-stone.'' 

She was nearly double his age, yet had not lost her co- 



johnsox. 199 

quetry. Her young husband determined to conquer this 
at once, as you will see from his own comical account of 
their ride to church on the wedding-day : " Sir, she had 
read the old romances, and had got into her head the fan- 
tastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover 
like a dog. So, sir, at first she told me that I rode too 
fast, and she could not keep up with me, and when I rode 
a little slower she passed me and complained that I 
lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice, 
and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore 
pushed on briskly till I was fairly out of her sight. The 
road lay between two hedges, and I was sure she could 
not miss it, and I contrived that she should soon come 
up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in 
tears." 

Money was now essential. All the petting and caress- 
ing in the world would never feed and clothe his tawdry, 
buxom "Tetsey," and he opened an academy near his 
native town. In the Gentleman' ] s Magazine, for 1736, 
there is the following advertisement : " At Edial, in Staf- 
fordshire, near Lichfield, young gentlemen are boarded 
and taught the Latin and Greek languages by Samuel 
Johnson." But this proved a failure. " Samuel John- 
son " was a young man, almost unknown, with no special 
gift for teaching. Eighteen months passed away, and 
the academy could boast of only three pupils, one of 
whom was David Garrick, afterward . one of the most 
celebrated actors ever known, famous both in tragedy and 
comedy. With a keen eye' for the ludicrous, and pos- 
sessed of wonderful powers of mimicry, you may be sure 
that " Davy " saw and heard much to amuse him during 
those school-days at Lichfield. Tired of drilling three 
roguish boys, Johnson now resolved to go to London, as 
so many others with full brains and empty pockets had 
done before him, some to starve, a few to succeed. Garrick 



200 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

accompanied him, and these two men, so utterly nnlike in 
talents and appearance, were ever after good friends. 

But these were hard times for authors, and Johnson 
suffered with the rest. The days of patrons were over. 
Literature was at its lowest ebb, and writers were held in 
little repute. Booksellers had such limited sales that they 
could afford to pay but small sums for the best manu- 
scripts. Politics opened a more certain road to fame than 
learning, and noblemen were more eager to grasp the 
prizes of office than to aid the cause of letters. Pope, by 
his unmerciful assault upon the scribblers of his day, had 
cast contempt upon the name of "poet," and what he 
maliciously ascribed to the authors of his time became the 
actual inheritance of those who came after. With the 
very name were associated poverty, duns, and the spong- 
ing-house. Some poets of real genius lodged in garrets, 
and thought themselves lucky to dine in a cellar. Emi- 
nent scholars sold their talents to the periodical press for 
a mere song, or bargained away manuscripts which had cost 
them years of toil for a few pounds, to save them from 
starvation or the jail. When success came, they knew not 
how to enjoy it prudently. After being dogged by bailiffs, 
and half starved for months, the receipt of gold made them 
greedy, and the wages of a year's hard work were squan- 
dered in a week. Intense enjoyment succeeded intense 
suffering, and they had no idea of economy. Johnson had 
a bitter experience of this wretched life. It was more 
than a year before he could get any permanent employ- 
ment, often walking the streets all night for want of 
shelter, and only seeking society on " clean-shirt " day. 

He at last became a regular contributor to the Gentle- 
man's Magazine, from which he obtained a tolerable sup- 
port for clever writing on the Tory side. He sent for his 
w^fe, for whom he found decent lodgings in Woodstock 
Street, near Hanover Square. A few weeks later his 



JOHNSON. 201 

famous poem on "London" appeared, anonymously, and 
created great excitement amongst the critics, little and 
big. All agreed that this unknown poet was a genius, 
and could not be long concealed. Pope treated him most 
generously, praised his poem, and tried to help him in 
various ways. But their circumstances were very unlike. 
Pope was -successful; his fame was made — not a distant 
prize to be fought for, through all sorts of rebuff and dis- 
appointment. He had an elegant home, plenty of money, 
and troops of titled friends, while Johnson was far behind, 
among the reckless, half-starved unfortunates, who were 
either hungry or drunk most of the time — men of genius, 
but too often profligate and dissolute. He felt the differ- 
ence keenly, and in one pathetic passage in his satire, 
which was written in imitation of Juvenal, tells his own 
story, very sad because so true : 

" THE FATE OF POVERTY. 

" By numbers here from shame or censure free, 
All crimes are safe but hated poverty. 
This, only this, the rigid law pursues, 
This, only this, provokes the snarling muse. 
The sober trader at a tattered cloak 
Wakes from his dream, and labors for a joke ; 
With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze, 
And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways. 

Of all the griefs that harass the distressed, 
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest ; 
Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, 
* Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart. 

Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor, 
No pathless waste, or undiscovered shore ? 
No secret island in the boundless main ? 
No peaceful desert yet unclaimed by Spain ? 
Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore, 
And bear Oppression's insolence no more. 
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, 
Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed." 



202 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

His tragedy of " Irene," which was brought out by the 
influence of his friend Garrick, was a failure. It was full 
of noble sentiments, but too stately to be popular on the 
stage. In 1744 he published the life of Richard Savage, 
his intimate companion during those first dreary years of 
London life. It is one of the best biographies ever writ- 
ten. Sir Joshua Reynolds read it through, not at one 
sitting, but at one standing, never moving from the first 
page to the last. But Savage was a poor friend for John- 
son in those dark, despondent days of want and despair, 
leading him into many scenes which afterward he would 
gladly have ignored. 

The year 1747 should be remembered as the one in 
which he gave to the world the " Plan of a Dictionary of 
the English Language," the great work of his life. This 
was dedicated to the Earl of Chesterfield, a man of infinite 
manner and infinitesimal morals. Blessed with brilliant 
wit and irresistible address, he was considered the first 
speaker in the House of Lords, and was one of the king's 
secretaries. He received Johnson's homage with his 
never-failing blandness, bestowed a few guineas in a grace- 
ful way, hoped for the success of the project, but was at 
heart (that is, if he possessed any,) disgusted with this un- 
couth specimen of a literary man, and resolved to be trou- 
bled w^ith no more visits. " He was by no means desirous of 
seeing his carpets blackened with London mud, and his 
soups and wines thrown to right and left over the gowns 
of fine ladies, and waistcoats of fine gentlemen, by an 
absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and 
uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow and 
ate like a cormorant." 

During some years Johnson continued to call on his 
patron, but, after being repeatedly told by his footman 
that his lordship was " not at home," took the hint, and 
ceased to present himself at the inhospitable door. But 



johnson. 203 

our author was in earnest, and could exist without the 
assistance c-f this wily courtier. For seven years he toiled 
on, employing six assistants as copyists, securing from his 
b'ookseller thg sum of fifteen hundred pounds for his sup- 
port during that time. Thinking of this dictionary as the 
work of an unaided scholar, without friends, or funds, or 
books, it is perhaps the greatest monument of learning, 
energy, and perseverance, which the literary annals of the 
world present. "The Dictionary of the French Lan- 
guage," which by good judges is considered inferior to 
Johnson's great work, employed forty scholars many years, 
under the patronage of the French Academy, with royal 
libraries and royal treasures at their command. Garrick 
wrote the following lines on the publication of the dic- 
tionary : 

" Talk of war with a Briton, he'll boldly advance, 
That one English soldier can beat ten of France. 
Would we alter the boast, from the sword to the pen, 
Our odds are still greater, still greater our men. 
In the deep mines of Science our Frenchmen may toil, 
Can their strength be compared to Locke, Newton, or Boyle ? 
Let them rally their heroes, send forth all their powers, 
Their versemen, their prosemen, then match them with ours. 
First Shakespeare and Milton, like gods in the fight ; 
Have put their whole Drama and Epic to flight, 
In satires, epistles, and odes, would they cope ? 
Their number retreats before Dry den and Pope ; 
And Johnson, well armed, like a hero of yore, 
Has beat forty French, and will beat forty more." 

Johnson despised monosyllables, and his fondness for 
high-sounding words is often seen in his dictionary. 
" Net-work is denned to be any thing reticulated or de- 
cussated, with interstices between the intersections." If 
any one should look up these definitions with an honest 
desire to find their meanings, he would hardly feel satis- 
fied with the result, and, combining the secondary mean- 



204 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

ing in one, the simple word " net-work " will be thus 
denned : " Any thing formed with interstitial vacuities, or 
intersected at acute angles, with spaces between one thing 
and another, between the points where lin^s cross each 
other." Often a simple word was defined by one more com- 
plex ; a short by a long one, as " burial " by " sepulture," 
" dry " by " dessicative," " fit " by " paroxysm," showing 
too his preference for words of Latin origin. He carried his 
private prejudices into the Dictionary. He hated Whigs 
and Scotchmen, and never failed to show his dislike to 
them by a definition when opportunity offered. There is 
something in, his definition of a lexicographer, as " a 
harmless, literary drudge," which is quite touching. The 
slight blemishes which may be found do not hide the ex- 
cellence and value of the work, which will be consulted as 
long as the language is spoken. 

It is time to speak again of the Earl of Chester- 
field, who, discovering that the penniless author whom he 
had sent from his door was something more than a 
" respectable Hottentot," and that his work would reflect 
honor on its patron, wrote two essays in his choicest 
style, for the paper of the day, in high commendation of 
the coming Dictionary. Johnson, with lofty indignation, 
declined his aid at that late day. The letter in which he 
rebuked his dilatory and selfish patron is one of the 
grandest specimens of literary censure ever written. 

He says to the Right Honorable the Earl of Chester- 
field — "My Lord: I have been lately informed by the 
proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my 
Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by 
your lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honor, 
which, being very little accustomed to favors from the 
great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to 
acknowledge. 

" When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visit- 



JOHNSON. 205 

ed your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of man- 
kind, by the enchantment of your address ; and could not 
forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur 
du vainqueur de la terre / — that I might obtain that re- 
gard for which I saw the world contending ; but I found 
my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor 
modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had 
once addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted 
all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly schol- 
ar can possess. I had done all that I could ; and no man 
is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. 

" Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I wait- 
ed in your outward rooms,, or was repulsed from your 
door ; during which time I have been pushing on my work 
through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and 
have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, with- 
out one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or 
one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for 
I never had a patron before. 

" The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with 
Love, and found him a native of the rocks. 

" Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with uncon- 
cern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, 
when he has reached the ground, encumbers him with 
help ? The notice which you have been pleased to take 
of my labors, had it been early, had been kind ; but' it has 
been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it ; 
till I am solitary, and cannot impart it ; till I am known, 
and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity 
not to confess obligations where no benefit has. been re- 
ceived, or to be unwilling that the public should consider 
me as owing that to a patron, which Providence has en- 
abled me to do for myself. 

" Having carried on my work thus far with so little 
obligation to any favorer of learning, I shall not be dis- 



206 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

appointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, 
with less ; for I have been long wakened from that dream 
of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much 
exultation, my lord, 

" Your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant, 

"Samuel Johnson." 

The book appeared without a dedication, and, when 
some friend expressed surprise, Johnson said : " I confess 
no obligation. I feel my own dignity, sir. I have made 
a voyage round the world of the English language, and 
while I am coming into port, with a fair wind, on a sun- 
shiny day, my Lord Chesterfield sends out two little cock- 
boats to tow me into port." 

So has the peerless genius of the lexicographer fast- 
ened to the page of history this heartless libertine, 
as the naturalist sometimes impales a gilded butterfly or 
loathsome bug, and places it upon the walls of his cabinet, 
as an object of interest to students in other years. While 
tugging at his oar in this long but successful voyage, his 
great mind was busy in other directions. In 1749 he 
brought out another " Satire," on the " Vanity of Human 
Wishes," rather too profound and philosophical for general 
admiration. His friend Garrick was discouraged. He 
said that "London" was very readable, the second 
" Satire " was hard as Greek, and he supposed the third 
would be Hebrew. Yet, although the style is ponder- 
ous, it has a vigor and power equal to Juvenal himself. 
Walter Scott said, he "enjoyed these satires more than 
other poetry." * He also started, and carried on, almost 
without .help, a paper called The HamMer, which he 
modelled after The Spectator, but there was little resem- 
blance to that sprightly sheet ; The Idler, which followed, 
was more readable, but not at all tempting for a leisure 
hour, the long sermons and labored language being rather 
fatiguing to a common mind. 



JOHNSOX. 207 

Here is a fair sample of the style from a Rambler^ of 
April, 1750 : "If the most active and industrious of man- 
kind was able, at the close of life, to recollect distinctly 
his past moments, and distribute them in a regular ac- 
count, according to the manner in which they have been 
spent, it is scarcely to be imagined how few would be 
marked out to the mind by any permanent or visible 
effects, how small a proportion his real action would bear 
to his seeming possibilities of action, how many chasms 
he would find of wide and continued vacuity, and how 
many interstitial spaces unfilled, even in the most tumult- 
uous hurries of business, and in the most eager vehemence 
of pursuit." 

Johnson thought and talked like an ordinary person, 
but wrote in "Johnsonese." If he ever forgot himself 
and wrote simply, a correction would be sure to follow. 
His letters to Mrs. Thrale from the Hebrides are often, 
easy and entertaining ; but he translated them into " John- 
sonese" as soon as he returned. He tells her, when he 
went up-stairs, " a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed 
on which one of us was to lie." But in the "Journal" 
you find the incident transformed thus : " Out of one of 
the beds on which we were to repose started up at our 
entrance a man black as a Cyclops from the forge." Gold- 
smith said very truly, " If you were to write a fable about 
little fishes, doctor, you would make them talk like wlrales. 

The death of his wife in 1752 put an encl to his writing 
for some time. He mourned for her as if she had been 
all that he fancied her. On her monument he placed a 
Latin epitaph, describing her as beautiful, cultivated, 
witty, and religious ; and when speaking of her in after- 
years would exclaim, " Pretty creature ! "* as if recalling 
a dream of loveliness. The old proverb that "love is 
blind " was certainly verified in his case. Six years later, 
in 1758, he lost his good mother, who died in her ninety- 



208 HOME PICTURES O? ENGLISH POETS. 

first year, at the old home in Lichfield. He was then just 
fifty ; but in his last letter he forgets his stately style, 
and writes like a child. He says : 

" Dear Honored Mother : 

" Neither your condition nor your character make it 
fit for me to say much. You have been the best mother, 
and are, I believe, the best woman in the world. I thank 
you for your indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness for all 
that I have done ill, and all I have omitted to do well. 
God grant you His Holy Spirit, and admit you to ever- 
lasting happiness, for Jesus Christ's saie ! Amen. Lord 
Jesus, receive your Spirit ! Amen. 

" I am, dear, dear mother, your dutiful son, 

" Sam Johnson." 

To pay the expenses of her funeral, he wrote diligent- 
ly for a week, and the result was " Rasselas," a story of 
Abyssinia — in fact, a series of moral essays, full of beau- 
tiful thoughts on his old theme, the " vanity of human 
wishes," very slightly covered by an imaginary tale of 
Eastern life. The book had a great success, being trans- 
lated into almost all the languages of Europe. 

The world at last began to discover Johnson's worth. 
The king even heard of him as the man who compiled the 
dictionary — a poor scribbler, who needed money — and he 
conferred on him a yearly pension of three hundred pounds. 
The following year he met in Mr. Davies's back parlor a 
person who had been longing for such an interview — to 
whom, vain, disagreeable, and garrulous though he may 
have been, both Johnson and his friends owe much. 

I beg leave to introduce to my readers Johnson's 
shadow, James Boswell, Esq., of Scotland. Ever after 
that memorable evening, Boswell seemed to have but one 
idea in his head (some severe critics have suggested that 
one was an improvement on the previous emptiness), and 



johnson. 209 

that was Dr. Johnson ! To follow his every step, to 
catch every word that fell from his lips and record it, was 
the ambition of his life. Every thing was ennobled that 
his new hero had touched or worn. His brown coat, his 
little scorched wig, his cocked hat, his heavy shoes, and 
huge cane, were all sacred in his eyes. He not only de- 
scribed his favorite dishes, but noted down just how much 
he ate of the fish-sauce, or the veal-pie with plums ; nor 
did he forget what was more important. 

Much of Johnson's remarkable talk would have been 
lost had Boswell been less of a slave and toady. He seemed 
proud of any notice from his master, and would note it 
down, though it were but an insult. He would usually 
call out the great moralist by asking a question, or con- 
tradicting a statement. Sometimes he got nothing but a 
rebuke, which would have silenced most persons forever. 
On one occasion he had been teasing Johnson with many 
direct questions, as, "What did ypu do, sir?" "What 
did you say, sir ? " until he became enraged, and thun- 
dered, " I will not be put to the question, sir ! Don't 
you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gen- 
tleman? I will not be baited with 4 what' and 'why;' 
< What is this ? ' ' What's that ? ' ' Why is a cow's tail 
long ? ' ' Why is a fox's tail bushy ? ' " " Why, sir," re- 
plied the humbled yet persistent questioner, " you are so 
good that I ventured to trouble you ! " " Sir," growled 
Johnson, " my being so good is no reason that you should 
be so ill. You have but two topics — yourself and me — 
and I am sick of both ! " So did this literary lion treat 
this spaniel that forever fawned upon him. Miss Burney, 
one of the popular writers of that day, describes Boswell 
as perfectly regardless of every thing and everybody, ex- 
cept Johnson — not even answering questions put to him, 
lest he might lose the smallest word from the doctor's lips. 
His father, the old laird of Auchinlech, was annoyed and 



210 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

mortified by his son's extravagant hero-worship. " There's 
nae hope for Jamie, mon; Jamie is gone clean gyte. 
What do you think, mon? he's done with Paoli; he's off 
wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican ; and who do 
you think he has pinned himself to now, mon ? a dominie, 
mon ; an auld dominie : he keeped a schule, and cau'd it 
an acaadamy." 

Yet why should poor " Bozzy " be always ridiculed 
and abused ? We are certainly greatly indebted to him, 
and should be grateful for the truthful portrait he has 
given of his "teacher, guide, and friend," in the very 
best biography ever written. 

We will give a few # extracts, to illustrate the singular 
habits, and rough, though brilliant style of conversation, 
belonging to the great Cham of Literature. Boswell says : 

" While talking or even musing, as he sat in his chair, 
Johnson commonly held his head to one side, toward his 
right shoulder, and shook it in a tremulous manner, mov- 
ing his body backward and forward, and rubbing his left 
knee in the same direction, with the palm of his hand. In 
the intervals of articulating, he made various sounds with 
his mouth, sometimes as if ruminating, or what is called 
chewing the cud, sometimes giving a half whistle, some- 
times making his tongue play backward from the roof of his 
mouth, as if clucking like a hen, and sometimes protrud- 
ing it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing 
quickly under his breath i too, too, too,' all this accompanied 
sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with 
a smile. Generally when he had concluded a period in the 
course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal ex- 
hausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out 
his breath like a whale. This, I suppose, was a relief to 
his lungs, and seemed in him to be a contemptuous mode 
of expression, as if he had made the arguments of his op- 
ponent fly like chaff before the wind. 



JOHXSCX. 211 

" One instance of his absence and particularity, as it 
is characteristic of the man, may be worth relating : 
When he and I took a journey together into the west, he 
visited the late Mr. Banks, of Dorsetshire ; the conversation 
turning upon pictures, which Johnson could not well see, 
he retired to a corner of the room, stretching out his right 
leg as far as he could reach before him, then bringing up 
his left leg and stretching the right still farther on. The 
old gentleman, observing him, went up to him, and in a 
very courteous manner assured him that, though it was 
not a new house, the flooring was perfectly safe. The 
doctor started from his reverie, like a person waked out 
of sleep, but spoke not a word. 

" When he walked the streets, what with the constant 
roll of his head and the concomitant motion of his body, 
he appeared to make his way by that motion, independent 
of his feet. That he was often much stared at while he 
advanced in this manner may easily be believed ; but it 
was not safe to make sport of any one so robust as he was. 
Mr. Langton saw him once in a fit of absence, by a sudden 
start, drive the load off a porter's back, and walk forward 
briskly without being conscious of what he had done. The 
porter was very angry, but stood still and eyed the huge 
figure with much earnestness, till he was satisfied that his 
wisest course was to be quiet and take up his burden again." 

We know from this faithful record how he sometimes 
gorged himself at table, till the veins swelled into knots 
on his forehead, and the perspiration streamed from his 
face ; how he often swallowed nineteen cups of tea, and ' 
if in the right mood would gulp down twenty-five ; how 
he laughed like a rhinoceros, and went scufihng and roll- 
ing about with dirty linen and unbuckled shoes, biting 
his nails to the quick, and hoarding every scrap of orange- 
peel he could find ; a tremendous companion in social life ; 
never enduring contradiction, and denouncing all who 



212 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

failed to agree with him as dunces and fools. But we are 
also told of his generous nature, his warm heart, his giant 
mind. He was ever ready to defend the unfortunate and 
protect the friendless ; and, however severe in his own 
judgment, he would never allow any one to speak ill of 
his friends in his presence. 

We have many pleasant pictures of him helping " poor 
Goldy" out of his perplexities, with the tenderness of a 
father ; weeping at Garrick's new-made grave ; carrying 
home on his broad shoulders a poor woman who had 
fainted and fallen in the streets; writing loving letters 
to his little godchild when sick and suffering ; petting his 
homely old cat Hodge, for whom he used to go out and 
buy oysters. All this proves that " there was nothing of 
the bear but the skin." 

He said to Boswell, " Sir, I consider myself a very 
polite man." In one sense this was thoroughly ludicrous ; 
in another, thoroughly true. 

In conversation he was very variable, sometimes say- 
ing nothing when all were longing for his opinion, again 
monopolizing the conversation, especially if there were 
other good talkers present. He would never allow Burke 
to outdo him, grunting and snorting savagely when he 
thought it time for him to stop. He acknowledges that 
he found Burke a powerful rival, and said once, when sick, 
"Don't let Burke in; he would kill me now ! " 

I will now give you a few sentences, that you may 
judge of his conversation and style : 

On the speculations of some one as to our condition 
before this life, possibly in a lower order of being, he said : 
" Sir, it is all conjecture about a thing useless, even were 
it known to be true ; knowledge of all kinds is good, but 
conjecture as to what it w^ould be useless to know, such as 
whether men went upon all-fours, is idle." 

A lady-friend complained that men had much more 



johxsox. 213 

liberty than women. " Why, madam," said Johnson, 
" women have all the liberty they should wish to have. 
We have all the labor and the danger, and women all the 
advantage. We go to sea, we build houses, we do every 
thing, in short, to pay our court to the women." But she 
persisted that a superiority was allowed to men to which 
they were not entitled. "It is plain, madam, one or 
other must have the superiority. As Shakespeare says, ' If 
two men ride on a horse, one must ride behind.' Then, mad- 
am," said Johnson, " the horse would throw them both." 

He was fond of fast driving, and admired pretty 
women, however poor a judge he proved himself of female 
charms, and said one day : "HI had no duties, and no 
reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving 
briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman ; but she 
should be one who would understand me, and would add 
something to the conversation." 

Hannah More was a special favorite, and could always 
put him in good-humor with her bright sallies and quick 
retorts. He honored her with several pet names, sucK as 
" child," " dearest," and — " little fool," the latter phrase 
having more real tenderness in it than all the others. She 
used to be placed next him at dinners, where he was ex- 
pected to talk. It was quite important that some one 
should be able to natter or draw him into a loquacious 
mood on these occasions, otherwise he might not "begin" 
at all, but sit as silent and abstracted as one dumb. Once 
when invited to a large dinner-party, where every one 
was waiting for an eloquent discussion, or, still better, one 
of his characteristic monologues, when ears, and memory, 
and note-books, were all ready, his only remark was 
" Pretty baby ! " to a little child playing on the floor. But. 
when with Hannah More his great mind was never slug- 
gish. Her sister Sally has given a pleasant, sprightly 
account of their first visit to his house: 



214: HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" London, 1114. 

" We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds. She 
had sent to engage Dr. Percy (Percy's collection — now 
yon know him), quite a sprightly modern, instead of a 
rusty antique, as I expected. He was no sooner gone than 
the most amiable and obliging of women (Miss Reynolds) 
ordered the coach, to take us to Dr. Johnson's very ovm 
house; yes, Abyssinia's Johnson ! Dictionary Johnson! 
Rambler's, Idler's, and Irene's Johnson ! Can you picture 
to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we ap- 
proached his mansion ? The conversation turned upon a 
new work of his, just going to press (' The Tour to the 
Hebrides '), and his old friend Richardson. Mrs. Williams, 
the blind poetess, who lives with him, was introduced to 
us. She is engaging in her manners, her conversation 
lively and entertaining. Miss Reynolds told the doctor 
of all our rapturous exclamations on the road. He 
shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said i she was a 
silly thing? When our visit was ended, he called for his 
hat (as it rained) to attend us down a very long entry to 
our coach, and not Rasselas could have acquitted himself 
more en cavalier. We are engaged with him at Sir 
Joshua's, Wednesday evening. What do you think of us ? 
I forgot to mention that, not finding Johnson in his little 
parlor when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great 
chair, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius ; when he 
heard it he laughed heartily, and told her it was a chair 
on which he never sat. He said it reminded him of Bos- 
well and himself when they stopped a night at the spot 
(as they imagined) where the weird sisters appeared to 
Macbeth ; the idea so worked upon their enthusiasm that 
it quite deprived them of rest. However, they learned the 
next morning, to their mortification, that they had been de- 
ceived, and were quite in another part of the country." 

He knew how to compliment a lady with great grace and 



johxsox. 215 

delicacy. Mrs. Siddons, the celebrated actress, once paid 
him a visit. When she entered the room there happened 
to be no chair ready for her, which observing, he said vrith 
a smile : " Madam, you who so often occasion a want of 
seats to other people, will the more easily excuse the want 
of one yourself" But he also knew well how to repel by 
brusqueness. To a lady asking his advice about her manu- 
script, saying, " I have other irons in the fire, but what 
would you do with this article ? " he replied, with more 
severity than politeness, " Put it with your other irons." 
I never heard of but one lady who had the courage to 
retort when thus answered. When in Scotland, eating 
their national dish of hodgepodge, the lady at whose 
table he was sitting inquired if it was good. " Good for 
hogs, madam." "Then, pray," said she, "let me help 
you to some more ! " 

One of his rough repartees has been put in rhyme by 
Peter Pindar : 

" In Lincolnshire, a lady showed our friend 
A grotto, that she wished him to commend ; 
Quoth she, ' How cool in summer this abode ! ' 
{ Yes, madam ' (answered Johnson), ' for a toad.'' " 

He lived for several years in the family of Mr. Thrale, 
a wealthy brewer, who was also in the House of Commons, 
a man of uncommon kindness and good sense. His death 
was a terrible affliction to Johnson, who was now very 
solitary. Mrs. Thrale was a pretty, chatty woman, culti- 
vated, and a good talker, whose flighty, volatile nature* 
had been restrained and controlled by her dignified and 
noble husband. But after his death all was changed. She 
had petted and praised " the Doctor," and had been proud 
of him as an inmate of her house, but now she treated him 
so coolly that he soon left, not without a blessing on the 
house and her who had caused his departure. When she 
disgraced herself a few years after by marrying an Italian 
10 



216 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

music-teacher, Piozzi, and was preparing to leave England 
to escape the scorn and censure of her old friends, Johnson 
sent after her a letter, which shows his noble nature : 

"Dear Madam: What you have done, however I 
may lament it, I have no pretence to resent, as it has not 
been injurious to- me. I therefore breathe out one sigh 
more of tenderness, perhaps useless, but at least sincere.. 

" I wish that God may grant you every blessing, that 
you may be happy in this world for its short continuance, 
and eternally happy in a better state ; and whatever I can 
contribute to your happiness I am very ready to repay for 
that kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radi- 
cally wretched. Do not think slightly of the advice which 
I now presume to offer. Prevail upon Mr. Piozzi to settle 
in England ; you may live here with more dignity than in 
Italy, and with more security; your rank will be higher, 
and your fortune more under your own eye. I desire not to 
detail all my reasons, but every argument of prudence and 
interest is for England, and only some phantoms of im- 
agination seduce you to Italy. I am afraid, however, 
that my counsel is vain, yet I have eased my heart by 
r doing it. 

" When Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering 
herself in England, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, at- 
tempting to dissuade her, attended on her journey, and, 
when they came to the irremeable stream that separated 
the two kingdoms, walked by her side into the water, in 
the middle of which he seized her bridle, and, with earnest- 
ness proportioned to her danger and his own affection, 
pressed her to return. The queen went forward. If the 
parallel reaches thus far, may it go no farther ! The tears 
stand in my eyes." 

A few years before his death he wrote " The Lives of 
the Poets," perhaps his best work, certainly the best intro- 
duction we have to the poets, from Cowley to Gray. Every 



JOHNSON. 



217 



sketch is tinged with his own prejudices, yet they are in- 
valuable to the lover of literature. 

Johnson's last days were full of sadness and suffering. 
He longed for life, not because he enjoyed it, but because 
he had such a peculiar horror of death. He felt that no 
one could or should be sure of salvation and future happi- 
ness, and dreaded, like a little child, to go out alone into 
the dark. It is pleasant to know that he died very easily, 
in apparent peace. His last words were, " God bless you ! " 
to a young lady who came in at the last to inquire for him. 
He was laid in Westminster Abbey, on a December day 
in 1784, among those eminent men of whom he had been 
the historian. 

" No need of Latin* or of Greek to trace 

Our Johnson's memory, or inscribe his grave ; 
His native language claims this mournful space, 
To pay the immortality he gave." 




LICHFIELD, THE BIRTHPLACE OF JOHNSON. 



10 




: W 



GOLDSMITH. 



"And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." 

We come next to Goldsmith, the blundering, artless, 
good-natured, whimsical genius, whom every one laughs 
at and every one loves. 

His character, an odd compound of the good and the 
bad, the ridiculous and the sublime, was his only inherit- 
ance from his good, simple-hearted, generous, impulsive, 
improvident father, who, marrying very young, with little 
to live on but faith and hope, struggled for a dozen years 



GOLDSMITH. 219 

with poverty and real want, as curate of the hamlet of 
Pallas, Longford County, in Ireland. 

There, in an old, half-rustic mansion, looking down on 
the river Inny, Oliver Goldsmith first saw the light, on 
the 10th of November, 1728, the fifth child in a family of 
eight. Both father and child should be rather pitied than 
blamed for their unworldliness and incompetency, for it was 
just like the race. They were always, according to their 
own account, a strange family; their hearts were in the 
right place, but their heads seemed to be doing any thing 
but what they ought — of no cleverness in the ways of the 
world. 

Two years after Oliver's birth, better times came to 
the honest curate, who, by the death of his wife's uncle, 
succeeded to a living, and moved from the old homestead 
at Pallas to the rectory of Lissoy, in the county of West- 
jneath — a comfortable place, with seventy acres of land, 
just outside the pretty little village. Here the good man 
kept open house, "with a crowd in the kitchen and a 
crowd round the parlor-table ; profusion, confusion, kind- 
ness, and poverty." 

We have two pictures of his father from Goldsmith's 
own pen. " My father, the younger son of a good family, 
was possessed of a small living in a church. His educa- 
tion was above his fortune, and his generosity greater 
than his education. Poor as he was he had his flatterers, 
poorer than himself; for every dinner he gave them they 
returned him an equivalent in praise ; and that was all 
Jie wanted. The same ambition that actuates a monarch 
at the head of his army, influenced my father at the head 
of his table. He told the story of the ivy-tree, and that 
was laughed at ; he repeated the jest of the two scholars 
with one pair of breeches, and the company laughed at 
that ; but the story of Taffy in the sedan-chair was sure 
to set the table in a roar. Thus his pleasure increased in 



220 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

proportion to the pleasure he gave ; he loved all the world, 
and he fancied all the world loved him." 

Another sentence perhaps contains the key to Gold- 
smith's after-charities, often so extravagant and unjust to 
himself: 

" He wound us up to be mere machines of pity, and 
rendered incapable of withstanding the slightest impulse 
made either by real or fictitious distress. In a word, we 
were perfectly instructed in the art of giving away thou- 
sands before we were taught the necessary qualifications 
of getting a farthing." 

In " The Deserted Village " we have a poetical version 
of the same story : 

"THE VILLAGE PREACHER. 

" Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 
And still where many a garden flower grows wild ; 
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 
The village preacher's modest mansion rose. 
A man he was to all the country dear, 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year ; 
Remote from towns, he ran his godly race, 
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place; 
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power 
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; 
Ear other aims his heart had learned to prize, 
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. 
His house was known to all the vagrant train, 
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ; 
The long-remembered beggar was his guest, 
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; 
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed ; 
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
Sat by his fire, and talked the night away ; 
Wept over his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 
Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. 
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 



GOLDSMITH. 221 

Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
His pity gave ere charity began. 

" Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side ; 
But in his duty prompt at every call, 
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all. 
# And, as a bird each fond endearment tries, 
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies ; 
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay," 
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 

11 Beside the bed where parting life was laid, 
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed, 
The reverend champion stood. At his control, 
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; 
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
And his last faltering accents whispered praise. 

" At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorned the venerable place ; 
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 
E'en children followed with endearing wile, 
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile. 
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed, 
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed ; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven : 
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 

Oliver's education began when he was about three 
years old, under the care of Mistress Elizabeth Delap, who 
thought him a dunce, of whom nothing could be made ; 
but who was, in after-years, very proud of boasting that 
she was the first to put a book into his hands. 

Thomas, or " Paddy " Byrne, as he was called, the 
village schoolmaster, next tried to give the careless boy 



222 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

some love of study. But Byrne had been a traveller and 
soldier as well as teacher, and would often charm his 
scholars with accounts of his marvellous adventures, of 
robbers, pirates, and smugglers, and of the fairy super- 
stitions of Ireland, when he should have been drilling 
them in their lessons. One of his listeners, enthusiastic 
and full of imagination, gained in this way a crazy long- 
ing to travel and see those wonders for himself. 

His style, in a severer mood, is described in a picture, 
which shows him to have been master of the ferule as well 
as the sword : 

" Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, 
There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 
The village master taught his little school ; 
A man severe he was, and stern to view, 
I knew him well, and every truant knew: 
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 
Full well the busy whisper circling round, 
Conveyed the dismal tidings when be frowned : 
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 
The love he bore to learning was in fault ; 
The village all declared how much he knew, 
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too ; 
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge : 
In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, 
For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; 
While words of learned length and thundering sound 
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around — 
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
That one small head <jould carry all he knew." 

Without doubt, the four or five years that Goldsmith 
spent with this stern yet garrulous pedagogue, gave 



GOLDSMITH. 223 

direction to his whole life. In addition to his various ac- 
complishments, Byrne wrote a little poetry now and then, 
and his admiring pupil, either from his example or a nat- 
ural fancy for rhyming, began to scribble little verses, 
but, like Thomson, he always threw them into the fire soon 
after they were written. 

His mother rescued some of these from the flames, 
and was proud and delighted. Oliver was a genius, she 
was sure, and would be a real poet some day. A boy 
who could write like that, when only eight years old, 
should not be tied to a trade ; he must be educated. His 
father had already spent more than he could well afford 
on his oldest son, Henry, who was doing well at the uni- 
versity, and had other plans for his second boy, feut the 
mother was in earnest, and, as usual in such cases, gained 
her way. 

That year the small-pox went through Europe like 
a scourge, and the parsonage at Lissoy was not passed 
over. Little Oliver recovered from the terrible disease, 
but the roses were gone from his cheeks, and he was sadly 
scarred and disfigured. 

This seemed especially hard, as he was very plain 
before, and had an intense longing for personal beauty. 
He was sent after this illness to the home of his uncle, 
John Goldsmith, where he was placed in another school. 
Here, as usual, he studied very little, played a great deal, 
was continually getting into all sorts of scrapes, and yet 
a general favorite. 

One evening, when dancing with a number of young 
folks, he undertook a hornpipe, in which he made such a 
ridiculous appearance, with his short clumsy figure, and 
pitted, discolored face, that the musician, who was one of 
the party, laughingly called him " his little ^Esop." Now 
this famous maker of fables, which we have all read and 
enjoyed, was a very ugly man, so tradition tells us, with 



224 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

a badly-shaped head and distorted limbs ; and Goldsmith, 
whose greatest desire seemed to be to be considered 
handsome, did not relish the joke. For once his wit 
did not fail him, and, stopping short in his awkward flour- 
ishes, he looked for a- moment at the fiddler, and then ex- 
claimed : 

" Our herald hath proclaimed this saying, 
See iEsop dancing and his monkey playing." 

This repartee completely turned the laugh, and he was 
thenceforth the acknowledged wit of the family. 

He was blessed with a wonderfully kind uncle, Con- 
tarine, who, having made up his mind that his nephew was 
an uncommon child in spite of all his peculiarities, took 
him under his protection, with a kindness and forbearance 
as beautiful as it was rare. And so he went through his 
school-days, " doing as little work as he could ; robbing 
orchards, playing at ball, and making his pocket-money 
fly about, whenever fortune sent it to him." 

There is a funny and very characteristic story told of 
his last journey home from school, of which I will give 
Irving' s charming version : 

" His father's house was about twenty miles distant ; 
the road lay through a rough country, impassable for 
carriages. Goldsmith procured a horse for the journey, 
and a friend furnished him with a guinea for travelling 
expenses. He was but a stripling of sixteen, and, being 
thus suddenly mounted on horseback, with money in his 
pocket, it is no wonder that his head was turned. He de- 
termined to play the man, and to spend his money in inde- 
pendent traveller's style. Accordingly, instead of push- 
ing directly for home, he halted for the night at the little 
town of Ardagh, and, accosting the first person he met, 
inquired, with somewhat of a consequential air, for the 
best house in the place. Unluckily, the person he had 



GOLDSMITH. 225 

accosted was one Kelly, a notorious wag, who was quar- 
tered in the family of one Mr. Featherstone, a gentleman 
of fortune. Amused with the self-consequence of the strip- 
ling, and willing to play off a practical joke at his expense, 
he directed him to what was literally ' the best house in 
the place,' namely, the family mansion of Mr. Feather- 
stone. Goldsmith accordingly rode up to what he sup- 
posed to be an inn, ordered his horse to be taken to the 
stable, walked into the parlor, seated himself by the fire, 
and demanded what he could have for supper. On ordi- 
nary occasions he was diffident and even awkward in his 
manners, but here he was ' at ease in his inn,' and felt 
called upon to show his manhood and enact the experi- 
enced traveller. His person was by no means calculated 
to play off his pretensions, for he was short and thick, with 
a pock-marked face, and an air and carriage by no means 
of a distinguished cast. The owner of the house, how- 
ever, soon discovered his whimsical- mistake, and, being 
a man of humor, determined to indulge it, especially as 
he accidentally learned that this intruding guest was the 
son of an old acquaintance. 

" Accordingly, Goldsmith was ' fooled to the top of 
his bent,' and permitted to have full -sway throughout the 
evening. Never was schoolboy more elated. When 
supper was served, he most condescendingly insisted that 
the landlord, his wife, and daughter, should partake, and 
ordered a bottle of wine to crown .the repast and benefit 
the house. His last flourish was on going to bed, when 
he gave especial orders to have a hot cake at breakfast. 
His confusion and dismay, on discovering the next morn- 
ing that he had been swaggering in this free and easy 
way in the house of a private gentleman, may be readily 
conceived. True to his habit of turning the events of his 
life to literary account, we find this chapter of ludicrous 
blunders and cross-purposes dramatized many years after- 



226 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

ward in his admirable comedy of ' She Stoops to Conquer, 
or the Mistakes of a Night.' " 

Irving wrote of Goldsmith with a loving hand, and 
makes his constant blunders seem less ridiculous than 
where they are exaggerated by the eurious, gossiping 
Boswell. 

On the 17th of June, 1745, at the age of seventeen, 
Goldsmith entered Trinity College as a sizar, a position in 
those days little better than that of a servant. These 
students worked for their board, and wore a different 
dress from the others, that no one might mistake their 
position. It must have been constant torture to a sly and 
sensitive boy like Goldsmith, to wear the coarse, sleeveless 
gown, and untasselled cap, badges of his poverty ; and wait 
upon the lazy idlers in the dining-hall, overhearing their 
sneering comments on his dress and manner. 

He lost his good father in 1747, and was in conse- 
quence poorer than ever. He now began to make use of 
his poetical talent, writing street ballads for five shillings 
apiece, and strolling through the city at night to watch 
their success. 

Whimsical stories are told of his benevolence while at 
college, which endear him to us in spite of their absurdity. 
For instance, he was once engaged to breakfast with a 
classmate, but did not appear. His friend went to his 
room, and found his expected guest, not only in bed, but 
immersed to his very chin in the feathers ! It seems that 
a widow with five small children, had touched his heart 
with her piteous tale, and, having no money to relieve her 
wants, he brought her to the college gate, and gave her 
most of his clothing, and the blankets from his bed. He 
was so cold in the night, that he cut the tick open and 
crept into the feathers ! 

He never studied well at college, and was the lowest in 
his class. He had a very disagreeable tutor, unreasonable 



GOLDSMITH. 227 

and ill-tempered, who insisted on his devoting his time to 
mathematics and logic, both of which he abhorred ; who 
' thought him ugly and stupid, and did not hesitate to tell 
him so. And it must be owned that he was not only idle, 
but riotous ; but this was owing to his love for gay com- 
pany, more than wrong impulses. At last, after gaining 
one of the minor prizes, he celebrated the unusual occa- 
sion by a supper and dance in his chamber. In the midst 
of the revelry, the fierce tutor appeared, knocked his 
pupil down, and turned his guests all out of doors. To be 
thus disgraced in the eyes of his friends was more than 
Goldsmith could endure, nor could he longer live under 
such insulting tyranny. So he sold his books and clothes 
the next day, and ran away. He had a vague idea of 
sailing to America, or some more distant shore, but lin- 
gered about Dublin till he had spent his last shilling, and 
was compelled, by absolute hunger, to let his brother 
Henry know of his distress. He .treated him most affec- 
tionately, supplied his wants, soothed his excited feelings, 
and induced him to return to college. 

He took a very low B. A., in 1749, and then went home 
to his mother's little cottage, at Ballymahon. His career 
as a student had disappointed his friends, and none were 
now inclined to help him but his faithful uncle, who urged 
him to prepare for holy orders, the only opening for a 
younger son, with no special bent, no plans of his own, 
and very little ambition. 

Goldsmith himself disliked this plan, and said he was 
not good enough for the position ; but I really think his 
greatest objection was the prescribed dress of a curate, 
such a love had he for gay colors. " To be obliged to 
wear a long wig, when I liked a short one, or a black 
coat, when I generally dressed in brown, I thought such 
a restraint upon my liberty, that I absolutely rejected the 
proposal." As he could not be ordained until he was 



228 HOME PICTUKES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

twenty-one, he loitered away the intervening time in the 
most lazy way, reading biographies, novels, travels, plays, 
everything that fed his imagination; wandering on the 
banks of the Inny; joining in the rustic sports of the 
villagers, in which he at once became an expert ; getting 
up a convivial club at the little inn at Ballymahon, where 
he told amusing stories, and sung jolly songs — any thing 
but studying divinity. 

When the time came to apply for orders, he appeared 
before the bishop, luminous in a pair of scarlet breeches — 
failed in his examination — and was rejected. His friends 
now began to shake their heads, and were both vexed and 
discouraged. Even his uncle did not talk much of his 
future ; he was no longer a genius, simply good-natured, 
and apparently — good for nothing ! 

It would take too long to tell you minutely of his life 
and adventures for the next six years ; a confusing, 
ludicrous, and yet pitiable series of blunders, failures, 
bad bargains, ill-luck at the gaming-table, absent-minded 
freaks, and all kinds of absurd and unlooked-for predica- 
ments. 

During these years, he attempted to be a tutor, a 
lawyer, and a physician, and failed in all ; travelling also 
through France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, often 
on foot, with nothing to depend on but his flute, playing 
merry tunes at night before some peasant's cottage, to 
earn a supper and a bed. During these wanderings he 
gained in some way the degree of M. B., at Padua, and 
deserves in future the title of — "Dr. Goldsmith." 

Until this time he had been constantly assisted by 
his uncle Contarine, who died while he was lingering in 
Padua. Lack of means compelled him now to turn his 
steps homeward ; and, after two years spent on the Conti- 
nent, " pursuing novelty and losing content," he landed 



GOLDSMITH. 229 

at Dover early in 1756, with no plans whatever for his 
future life. 

His dear uncle in his grave, his friends cold and dis- 
trustful, a penniless stranger in a foreign land, his condi- 
tion was indeed forlorn. At last, he determined to go 
directly to London, and find some sort of employment. 

" Tou may easily imagine," he said in a letter of some 
years later to his brother-in-law, " what difficulties I had 
to encounter, left as I was, without friends, recommenda- 
tions, money, or impudence, and that in a country where 
being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me unem- 
ployed. Many in such circumstances would have had re- 
course to the friar's cord or the suicide's halter. But with 
all my follies I had principle to resist the one, and reso- 
lution to combat the other." 

These were, indeed, dark days in that great city, with- 
out a friend to aid or cheer him. It is a sad history — a 
lonely struggle. We first find him making a desperate 
attempt to do something in his own profession ; first, as 
an apothecary's drudge, unable, after all his studies, to 
manage the pestle and mortar ; afterward, assisting a 
chemist in his laboratory ; and, at last, commencing prac- 
tice in a small way, with small pay, among the poor at 
South wark — only the poor, because he lacked the tact, 
address, polish, which would make him a favorite among 
the rich. 

An old acquaintance, who happened to meet him in 
the streets about this time, describes him as decked in a 
second-hand coat of green and gold, his linen looking as 
if "clean shirt-day" came to him only once a fortnight. 
But his blessed " knack of hoping " had not forsaken the 
luckless doctor, who smilingly assured his friend that he 
was " practising physic, and doing very well" while at the 
moment he was suffering from poverty from which he saw 
no escape ; hungry, perhaps, as well as tawdry and dirty. 



230 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Another describes him in a rusty suit of black velvet, 
to which was added a big wig and cane. A forlorn patch 
on the left breast he tried to conceal by pressing his three- 
cornered hat against his side, in the then fashionable style, 
sternly resisting all inducements to lay it aside when visit- 
ing a patient. 

We also hear of him correcting proof for the press — 
always a most tedious task ; even reduced to figuring in 
low comedy in a country town ; and, hardest of all, as 
usher for a short time in a boy's boarding-school. He 
never failed to make use of his various experiences : we 
find them all woven into exquisite prose and verse in after- 
years, and laugh over his well-told tale of miseries — no 
laughing matter to him. 

In the " Vicar of Wakefield " he makes George Prim- 
rose undergo the following catechism. The simple youth 
is questioned as to his qualifications for an usher : 

"Have you been bred apprentice to the business?" 
" No." " Then you won't do for a school. Can you dress 
the boys' hair ? " " No." " Then you won't do for a 
school. Can you lie three in a bed ? " " No." " Then 
you will never do for a school. Have you a good 
stomach ? " " Yes." " Then you will by no means do 
for a school. I have been * an usher in a boarding-school 
myself, and may I die of an anodyne necklace, but I had 
rather be under-turnkey in Newgate. I was up early and 
late ; I was browbeat by the master, hated for my ugly 
face by the mistress, worried by the boys." 

And here is another description of the hardships of an 
usher's life : 

"He is generally the laughing-stock of the school. 
Every trick is played upon him ; the oddity of his man- 
ner, his dress, or his language, is a fund of eternal ridicule. 
The master himself now and then cannot avoid joining 
in the laugh ; and the poor wretch, eternally resenting 



GOLDSMITH. 231 

this ill-usage, lives in a state of war with all the fam- 
ily." 

Now for the climax : 

" He is obliged, perhaps, to sleep in the same bed with 
the French teacher, who disturbs him for an hour every 
night in papering and filleting his hair, and smells worse 
than a carrion with his rancid pomatums, when he lays his 
head beside him on the bolster." 

The next four years he spent in a wretched way, toil- 
ing as a book hack for a grinding taskmaster, a bookseller 
by the name of Griffiths, whose fussy old wife undertook 
to criticise and revise his manuscripts. 

He describes himself as in a garret, writing for bread, 
and expecting to be dunned for a milk score. He also 
contributed to the " Ledger " a series of essays much ad- 
mired then as now, which he afterward collected and pub- 
lished under the name of " The Citizen of the World ; " 
purporting to be the letters of a Chinaman, who, visiting 
London, writes home to his friends what he saw, and how 
it impressed him. They are full of grave irony, good- 
natured satire, and sparkling criticisms on English man- 
ners and morals. 

Mr. Newberry, the proprietor of this paper, was also 
a bookseller, quite famous for getting up picture-books for 
the little folks. It is said that we owe " Goody Two 
Shoes " to Goldsmith, who sent it to Newberry one day 
when quite out of money. " Mother Goose," whose jing- 
ling rhymes we all know from beginning to end, was writ- 
ten in part at least by literary men, who tossed off these 
nonsensical verses to gain a dinner or a night's lodging. 
In 1759 he published "An Inquiry into the Present State 
of Polite Learning," which brought him into notice, and 
enabled him to move from his miserable quarters into 
very comfortable rooms in Wme-office Court in Fleet 
Street. 



232 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

But his native buoyancy was somewhat crushed by all 
these trials, and in a letter to his brother Henry, when 
sending the book to him, says : 

" I must confess it gives me some pain to think I am 
almost beginning the world at the age of thirty-one. 
Though I never had a day's, sickness since I saw you, yet 
I am not that strong, active man you once knew me. You . 
scarcely can conceive how much eight years of disappoint- 
ment, anguish, and study, have worn me down. If I re- 
member right, you are seven or eight years older than me, 
yet I dare venture to say, that, if a stranger saw us both, 
he would pay me the honors of seniority. Imagine to your- 
self a pale, melancholy visage, with two great wrinkles be- 
tween the eyebrows, with an eye disgustingly severe, and 
a big wig, and you may have a perfect picture of my pres- 
ent appearance. On the other hand, I conceive you as 
perfectly sleek and healthy, passing many a happy day 
among your own children, or those who knew you a child." 

He begs him never to let his son touch a romance or 
novel : 

"These paint beauty in colors more charming than 
nature, and describe happiness that man never tastes. 
How delusive, how destructive, are those pictures of con- 
summate bliss ! They teach the youthful mind to sigh 
after beauty and happiness that never existed ; to despise 
the little good that fortune has mixed in our cup, by ex- 
pecting more than she ever gave ; and, in general, take 
the word of a man who has seen the world, and who has 
studied human nature more by experience than precept — 
take my word for it, I say, that books teach us very little 
of the world. The greatest merit in a state of poverty 
would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous — may 
distress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and even 
avarice, in -the lower orders of mankind, are true ambition. 
These afford the only ladder for the poor to rise to prefer- 



GOLDSMITH. 233 

ment. -Teach then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and 
economy. Let his poor wandering uncle's example be 
placed before his eyes. I had learned from books to be 
disinterested and generous before I was taught from ex- 
perience the necessity of being prudent. I hacf contracted 
the habits and notions of a philosopher, while I was ex- 
posing myself to the approaches of insidious cunning ; 
and often by being, even with my narrow finances, chari- 
table to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and placed 
• myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked 
me for my bounty. When I am in the remotest part of 
the world, tell him this, and perhaps he may improve from 
my example. But I find myself again falling into my 
gloomy habits of thinking." 

We now come to a pleasant meeting. Johnson had 
read Goldsmith's essays with great pleasure, speaking of 
them to his friends in the highest terms. The author was 
flattered and delighted, and invited- Johnson to a literary 
supper at his lodgings. Accordingly, on the evening of 
the 31st of May, 1761, the gruff but kind-hearted lexi- 
cographer might have been seen rolling along toward 
Wine-office Court, looking, strange to say, very trim and 
bandboxy. He wore an entire new suit, a new hat, and the 
scorched wig was discarded ; in fact, his appearance was 
so striking that one of his friends could not but notice his 
uncommon spruceness. " Sir," said Johnson, " I hear that 
Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disre- 
gard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice, 
and I am desirous this night to show him a better ex- 
ample." 

The " little Irishman and the big Englishman " met and 
were mutually pleased, and the acquaintance soon ripened 
into intimacy. 

Boswell was jealous of this awkward scholar, who had 
"such a hurry \>£ ideas, and such laughable confusion in 



231 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

expressing them," and was willing to exaggerate his de- 
fects. He avers that he was so eager to shine, so desir- 
ous of notice and approbation, that he seemed unhappy 
when travelling with two very beautiful young ladies, be- 
cause the/ received more attention than himself! — and 
that he even grew angry at the praise bestowed on a 
puppet, which tossed a pike with great dexterity, saying, 
" Pshaw! I can do that better myself!" He also adds, 
that, going home with Burke to supper, after the show, 
he broke his ankle in attempting to out-do the puppets ! I 
Goldsmith in his turn despised the fawning parasite, and 
disproved Boswell's assertion that " he talked carelessly, 
without knowledge of his subject," when he answered 
some one who inquired, " Who is this Scotch cur at John- 
son's heels ? " " He is not a cur" said Goldsmith, " you are 
too severe ; he is only a burr. Tom Davies flung him at 
Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of sticking ! " 

We find a double pleasure in a happy retort from him, 
because he so often blundered, and one instance of his 
success in this direction is positively exhilarating, for the 
" Great Cham " himself is the victim. They were enjoy- 
ing a cosy tete-d-tete supper one evening, and Johnson 
expatiated on a dish of rump and kidneys, which he was 
causing rapidly to disappear. 

" These," said he, " are pretty little things, but a man 
must eat a great manyof them before he is filled." 

" Ay, but how many of them," asked Goldsmith, with 
affected simplicity, " would reach to the moon ? " 

" To the moon ? Ah, sir, that, I fear, excels your cal 
culation." 

" Not at all, sir. I think I could tell." 

" Pray, then, sir, let us hear." 

" Why, sir — one, if it were long enough ! " 

Johnson growled for a time, at finding himself caught 
in such a "trite, school-boy trap." 



GOLDSMITH. 235 

Through the influence of his new friend, Goldsmith 
was now admitted to the celebrated literary club which 
used to irieet every Monday night, at the Turk's Head, 
Gerard Street, Soho. The number was limited to nine, 
and among the original members were Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, the founder of the English school of painting ; and 
Burke, the orator and statesman, of whom Johnson said 
that " no man of sense could meet Mr. Burke by accident 
under a gateway to avoid a shower, without being con- 
vinced that he was the first man in England." The 
others, though not so well known, were all men of culture 
and wit. 

Goldsmith's appearance was against him ; he was, to 
most of them, a mere literary drudge, and must have suf- 
fered under their satirical supervision. Although no man 
of his age could surpass him in smooth, graceful, and 
attractive composition, he was vanquished in conversation 
by men who did not possess a tithe, of his genius, for he 
was blundering and illogical, seldom able to tell what he 
knew. 

Of course, he never did himself justice at these meet- 
ings, and was often the subject of ridicule. Johnson said 
of him that "no man was more foolish when he had not. 
his pen in hand, or more wise when he had ; " and Gar- 
rick, who never liked him, afterward paraphrased this 
idea in an epitaph, when, as -usual, he was the last to 
arrive at the club : 

" Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll." 

But Goldsmith talked on, often laughed at, seldom lis- 
tened to, and yet, when in a happy mood, charming all by 
the thoughtless outpourings of a fertile fancy. He was 
busily writing, at this time, no one knew what. He was, 
as usual, in debt, and always in trouble, but he had a firm 
friend and sincere adviser in Johnson, who discerned his 



236 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

real merit. He would scold him like a child, yet allow no 
one else to speak of him with disrespect, and was ever 
ready to help him out of his embarrassments. * 

" I received one morning," says Johnson, " a message 
from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as 
it -was not in his power to come to me, begging that I 
would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a 
guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accord- 
ingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his 
landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was 
in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already 
changed my guinea, and had a bottle of madeira and a 
glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired 
he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means 
by which he might be extricated. He then told me he 
had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. 
I looked into it and saw its merit ; told the landlady I 
should soon return ; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold 
it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and 
he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in 
a high tone for having used him so ill." 

The novel was- " The Vicar of Wakefield," that capti- 
vating story many of whose phrases have passed into 
household words ; which has been translated into various 
languages, and is just as much read and admired now as 
ever. The first genuine novel of domestic life; like 
Goldy himself, full of contradictions, blunders, absurdi- 
ties, yet winning our hearts, and holding a place there. 
" No bad man could write a book so full of the soft sun- 
shine and tender beauty of domestic life — so sweetly 
wrought out of the gentle recollections of the old home 
at Lissoy." 

And this delightful story was actually kept by the 
stupid publisher for two years ! Let us be thankful that 
he did not lose it during the time. 



GOLDSMITH. 237 

In December of 1764, "The Traveller" appeared, and 
the slow-witted public began to think that they had a 
genius among them. It had a remarkable success, and 
proved a rich prize to the publisher, who doled out twenty 
guineas to the author for his share of the profits. Even 
this seemed a golden windfall to the needy poet. He dis- 
trusted his power of verse-making, and had published this 
poem in fear and trembling. He said, "I fear I have 
come too late into the world ; Pope and other poets have 
taken up the places in the Temple of Fame." 

But Goldsmith's reputation was now rising rapidly, 
and he was one of the lions of the day. Charles Fox pro- 
nounced "The Traveller" to be one of the finest poems 
in the English language. Johnson declared it was better 
than any thing since the days of Pope. Everybody won- 
dered how the homely, dumpy Irishman, full of " brogue 
and blunder," could have produced such a gem. Some 
doubted whether it was really his work, he answered so 
stupidly when questioned as to the meaning of any partic- 
ular passage. 

Miss Reynolds, who had toasted him as the ugliest 
man she ever saw, exclaimed, after some one had finished 
reading the poem to her — " Well, I shall never think Dr. 
Goldsmith ugly any more ! " 

His presence was now courted in elegant drawing- 
rooms; but he made a sorry presence there. He- was 
now forty years of age — too old to adopt new manners, 
with his new mode of life, and he disappointed all who 
had their ideas ofthe man, from the ease and grace of his 
poetry. 

It was now considered safe to bring out " The Vicar 
of "Wakefield," which had been slumbering for two years 
in the hands of the publishers. It came out on the 27th 
of March, 1766 ; three editions were exhausted in as many 
months, and its popularity has never flagged. Goethe, 



238 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

the greatest genius of Germany, said that this book had 
formed part of his education, influencing his taste and 
feelings through life, and that he read it at twenty and 
at eighty with the same delight. 

As an illustration of the humor which runs through 
the story, let me give you the description of the picture 
of the Primrose family : 

" My wife and daughters, happening to return a visit 
to neighbor Flamborough's, found that family had lately 
got their pictures drawn by a limner, who travelled the 
country, and took likenesses for fifteen shillings a head. 
As this family and ours had long a sort of rivalry in point 
of taste, our spirit took the alarm at this stolen march 
upon us, and notwithstanding all I could say, and I said 
much, it was resolved that we should have our pictures 
done too. Having, therefore, engaged the limner — for 
what could I do ? — our next deliberation was, to show the 
superiority of our tastes in the attitudes. As for our 
neighbor's family, there were seven of them, and they 
were drawn with seven oranges, a thing quite out of taste, 
no variety in life, no composition in the world. We de- 
sired to have something in a brighter style, and, after 
many debates, at length came to a unanimous resolution 
of being drawn together in one large historical family 
piece. This would be cheaper, since one frame would 
serve for all, and it would be infinitely more genteel ; for 
all families of taste were now drawn in the same manner. 
As we did not immediately recollect an historical subject 
to hit us, we were contented each wifh being drawn as 
independent historical figures. My wife desired to be 
represented as Venus, and the painter was desired not to 
be too frugal of his diamonds in her stomacher and hair. 
Her two little ones were to be as Cupids by her side ; 
while I, in my gown and band, was to present her with 
my books on the Whistonian controversy. Olivia would 



GOLDSMITH. 239 

be drawn as an Amazon sitting upon a bank of flowers, 
dressed in a green Joseph, richly laced with gold, and a 
whip in her hand. Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with 
as many sheep as the painter could put in for nothing ; 
and Moses was to be dressed out with a hat and white 
feather. Our taste so much pleased tfie Squire, that he 
insisted as being put in as one of the family in the charac- 
ter of Alexander the Great, at Olivia's feet. This was 
considered by us all as an indication of his desire to be 
introduced into the family, nor could we refuse his re- 
quest. The painter was therefore set to work, and, as he 
wrought with assiduity and expedition, in less than four 
days the whole was completed. The piece was large, and 
it must be owned he did not spare his colors ; for which 
my wife gave him great encomiums. We were all per- 
fectly satisfied with his performance ; but an unfortunate 
circumstance had not occurred till the picture was finish- 
ed, which now struck us with dismay. It was so very 
large that we had no place in the house to iix it. How 
we all came to disregard so material a point is inconceiv- 
able; but certain it is, we had been all greatly remiss. 
The picture, therefore, instead of gratifying our vanity, 
as we hoped, leaned, in a most mortifying manner, against 
the kitchen wall, where the canvas was stretched and 
painted — much too large to be got through any of the 
doors, and the jest of all our neighbors. One compared it 
to Robinson Crusoe's long boat, too large to be removed ; 
another thought it more resembled a reel in a bottle; 
some wondered how it could be got out ; but still more 
were amazed how it ever got in ! " # 

Goldsmith next tried comedy. "The Good-natured 

Man," after much delay, was brought out at Covent 

Garden. Owing to mean wire-pulling by his enemies, it 

was in a measure a failure, though bringing five thousand 

11 



2i0 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

pounds to poor Goldy, who now dashed out into most ex- 
travagant expenditure. 

In the books of his tailor we see an entry of a suit — 
" Tyrian bloom, satin grain, and garter blue silk breeches," 
and of another " lined with silk, and furnished with gold 
buttons." 

He leased three rooms on the second floor of Brick 
Court, Middle Temple, and adorned them with mirrors, 
Wilton carpets, bookcases, and card-tables. Here he 
gave brilliant dinner-parties and jolly suppers, a thought- 
less spendthrift, enjoying in butterfly fashion his transient 
summer of prosperity. His purse was soon emptied, and 
then he ran deeply in debt, hoping soon to turn up another 
trump, and pay all he had borrowed. 

In 1769 he published his "History of Rome," for the 
use of schools and colleges. Though not a work that he 
enjoyed, it is compiled with taste and skill, and was well 
received. He also wrote a history of England, in the same 
style. 

About this time he made the acquaintance of two 
charming young ladies, the Misses Horneck, meeting them 
one evening at Joshua Reynolds's. The younger sister, 
Miss Mary, called by her friends " The Jessamy Bride," 
particularly fascinated him, and both were his firm friends 
through life. 

At the house of Mrs. Bunbury, the older sister, he 
spent many a happy week, leading the games at Christmas, 
and romping with the children during his summer holi- 
days. 

He always indulged in a gay suit when invited to 
Barton, doubtless hoping to make an impression on the 
fair Miss Horneck, who laughed, as did every one else, at 
his love of finery. He was not allowed to enjoy his silk 
coats, and dainty ruffles, and bag-wig, when with that 
merry party. They disarranged his beautiful curls, and 



GOLDSMITH. 241 

daubed his bloom-colored coat with paint, which mortified 
him greatly. 

But they all appreciated his talent, and were really 
fond of him, and I think his happiest days were spent with 
this pleasant family, forgetting debts and duns, and re- 
joicing in the sweet smile of the Jessamy Bride. 

" The Deserted Village" appeared in May, 1770, and 
sold rapidly ; by the 16th of August the fifth edition was 
hurried through the press. It is his finest poem, written 
in the same measure and style as " The Traveller ; " like 
that, a mirror of his own heart, and .equally true to nature. 
Loitering among the green lanes and hedge-rows that are 
found in the environs of London, his mind went back to 
childish days, and the poem is a faithful pen-photograph 
of the dear old hamlet at; Lissoy, where he spent his care- 
less, happy boyhood. 

How touching the contrast between his feelings then 
and the yearnings of his solitary heart, as expressed in 
these pathetic lines : 

" In all my wanderings round this world of care, 
In all my griefs — and God has given my share — 
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, 
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
To husband out life's taper at the close, 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose : 
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, 
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill — 
Around my fire an evening group to draw, 
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw ; 
And as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue, 
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew, 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
Here to return — and die at home at last." 

The emphatic words of poor, dying Gray, who heard 
" The Deserted Village " read at Malvern, where he spent 
11 



242 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

his last summer in a vain search for health, must be echoed 
by every feeling heart : " That man is a poet." 

Many wondered why Goldsmith should ever write any 
thing but poetry, but stern necessity compelled him to 
devote himself to prose, which brought better pay. 

Poetry never satisfies an impatient creditor, and when 
Earl Lisburn asked Goldsmith why he waste.d his time 
compiling histories, he said : " My lord, by courting the 
Muses I shall starve, but by my other labors I shall eat, 
drink, have good clothes, and enjoy the luxuries of life." 

His affairs were now in a terrible condition ; he owed 
more than he dared to think of, and had spent money 
given in advance for what was not written. Distressed 
and heart-sick, he appeared at times unnaturally gay, and 
then completely down. Alarme # d at last, he began to re- 
trench, and went into the country for the summer, to work 
on a natural history he had undertaken at a hundred guin- 
eas a- volume, most of which he had already wasted. It 
would have seemed preposterous for Goldsmith to under- 
take this task, if he had not been blessed with the power 
that Stella said Swift possessed — " of writing well on a 
broomstick " — for he had no knowledge whatever of his 
subject, hardly knowing one animal from another, only 
able to distinguish a turkey from a goose, when they were 
cooked on the table ; but Johnson prophesied that the work 
would be as entertaining as a Persian tale, and so it is. 

In a letter to a friend, at this time, he mentions that 
he is writing a comedy, " trying these three months to do 
something to make the people laugh ; strolling about the 
hedges, studying jests, with a most tragical countenance." 

From various reasons this did not appear on the stage 
for some time after it was written ; but on the evening of 
the 15th of May, 1773, Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and a 
phalanx of tried and trusty friends, were seen at the 
Covent Garden Theatre, seated in different parts of the 



GOLDSMITH. 243 

house, ready to applaud Goldy's new play. Many feared 
a failure, but Johnson was sure of success. He sat in the 
front row of a side box, where every one could see him, 
and it was arranged that, whenever he laughed, all the 
rest were to roar as heartily and naturally as possible. 
One Adam Drummond, who had a loud, rattling, and per- 
fectly contagious laugh, was placed in an upper box, just 
over the stage, but as he was something like a cannon, 
very noisy, but ignorant when to " go off," some one sat 
by him to give him &jog, as a signal to begin. 

The plan worked well; the ilite laughed when the 
lexicographer shook his clumsy sides over the jokes, and 
no one could resist the uproarious cackle of the good- 
natured Adam in the front box. The audience laughed 
till they cried, and "She Stoops to Conquer, or The 
Mistakes of a Night," .was the " hit " of the season. 

You remember the plot of this popular play was sug- 
gested to the author by his own mistake so many years 
before, when he spent a night at the Featherstone man- 
sion, and ordered hot cakes for breakfast. 

• I told you of Garrick's epitaph on Goldsmith, which, 
containing more truth than epitaphs in general, was not 
relished by the subject, who had serious objections to 
being considered an inspired parrot. Some time after, he 
produced a little poem, one evening, at the club, which he 
begged to read for the pleasure of the members. 

This was "Retaliation," in which he retorted upon 
several of his friends, who had been in the habit of making 
him the butt of their jokes. 

His humor was always good-humor, his satire never 
caustic, but the account was now even. Garrick's epitaph 
is a perfect description of the man : 

" Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can, 
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man ; 



244 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

As an actor, confessed without rival to shine ; 

As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : 

Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, 

The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 

Like an ill-judging beauty, his 'colors he spread, 

And beplastered with rouge his own natural red. 

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ; 

'Twas only that when he was off he was acting. 

With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 

He turned and he varied full ten times a day : 

Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick, 

If they were not his own by finessing and trick : 

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, 

For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back. 

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came, 

And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ; 

Till his relish, gown callous almost to disease, 

Who peppered the highest was surest to please. 

But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, 

If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. 

Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, 

What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave ! 

How did Grub Street reecho the shouts that you raised, 

While he was be-Rosciused and you were be-praised ! 

But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, 

To act as an angel and mix with the skies : 

Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill, 

Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; 

Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love, 

And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above." 

This poem was never finished ; the portraits are not 
complete, for Goldsmith, who had long been ill, both 
body and mind, was attacked by a nervous fever in the 
spring of 1774, which his constitution had not the power 
to resist, and he died on the 4th of April, in the forty-fifth 
year of his age. 

When Burke was told of his death, he burst into 
tears. Reynolds was in his painting-room when the sad 
news came to him. He at once laid his pencil aside, 



GOLDSMITH. 245 

which, in times of great family distress, he had not been 
known to do, and left his work for the day. His faithful 
friend Johnson felt the blow deeply. On the stairs lead- 
ing to his chamber, sat the old and infirm, mourning 
their loss ; many poor women sobbing bitterly for their 
generous friend. After his coffin was closed, it was re- 
opened, and a lock of hair taken for a lady, who wished 
to preserve it as a remembrance. It was his old friend, 
the beautiful Jessamy Bride, who desired this token. 

He deserved a place in Westminster Abbey, and his 
friends at first intended to honor his memory in that way. 
A public funeral was planned, Reynolds, Burke, and Gar- 
rick, among the bearers ; but when they discovered that 
he died very deeply in debt, owing more than two thou- 
sand pounds, such a display seemed inappropriate. Five 
days after his death, at twilight on Saturday evening, the 
9th of April, 1774, he was quietly interred in the bury- 
ing ground of Temple Church. 

A fine bust of the poet was soon after placed in the 
abbey, by the club of which he had been a member, and 
Johnson wrote a Latin epitaph, which was inscribed on a- 
white marble tablet underneath. He wrote of Goldsmith 
as " a poet, naturalist, and historian, who left scarcely 
any style of writing untouched, and touched nothing that 
he did not adorn." He also spoke of his power to move 
us to smiles or tears, and this is as true of his life as his 
writings. 

Irving says that "he seemed from infancy to have 
been compounded of two natures, one bright, the other 
blundering." Shy, awkward, sensitive, eager for praise, 
fond of display, always doing or saying the most ridicu- 
lous things, we cannot help laughing at his absurdities ; 
but he was so generous, so noble in his impulses, so for- 
giving and gentle, so sad-hearted and restless beneath all 
his merriment and foolish display, that a sigh of tender- 



216 



HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 



ness and pity involuntarily follows the smile. His very 
faults and foibles rather attract than repel, and I doubt 
if there is a writer in the whole range of English litera- 
ture who is regarded with more sympathy and affection 
than— "Poor Goldy." 




GOLDSMITH AND JOHNSON. 




" And now what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story ; 
How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the glory. 
And how, when one by one sweet sounds and wandering lights departed, 
He wore no less a loving face, because so broken-hearted." 

William Cowper, whom his best biographer, Southey, 
speaks of as " the most popular poet of his generation, and 
the best of English letter- writers," was the son of Dr. John 
Cowper, a royal chaplain, rector of Great Berkhampstead, 
in Hertfordshire. . He could boast of his ancestry on both 
sides, as his father was the son of a judge, and nephew of 
a lord chancellor, and his mother was descended by four 
different lines from Henry III. of England. He was 
born at the parsonage, on the loth of November, 1731. 
His early days were made bright and happy by the tender 
love of his mother. " Her hand it was that wrapped his 



24:8 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

little scarlet cloak around him, and filled his little bag 
with biscuits every morning, before he went to his first 
school. By her knee was his happiest place, where he 
often amused himself by marking out the flowered pattern 
of her dress on paper with a pin, taking a child's delight 
in this simple skill. He was only six years old when this 
fond mother died ; thus early upon the childish head a 
pitiless storm began to beat." 

The delicate, diffident boy was old enough to know 
his great loss, and has recorded his feelings at that sad 
time in one of his most beautiful poems, on the receipt of 
her picture more than fifty years after : 

ON THE RECEIPT OF HIS MOTHER'S PICTURE. 

11 that those lips had language ! Life has passed 
With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 
Those lips are thine — thy own sweet smile I see, 
The same that oft in childhood solaced me ; 
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, 
* Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away ! ' 
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes 
(Blest be the art that can immortalize, 
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim 
To quench it !) here shines on me still the same. 
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, 

welcome guest, though unexpected here ! 
Who bidd'st me honor with an artless song, 
Affectionate, a mother lost so long. 

1 will obey, not willingly alone, 

But gladly, as the precept were her own : 
And, while that face renews my filial grief, 
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief ; 
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie, 
A momentary dream, that thou art she. 

My mother ! when I learned that thou wast dead, 
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ? 
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, 
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun ? 



cowpek. 249 

Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss : 

Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss — 

Ah, that maternal smile ! it answers — Yes. 

I heard the bell tolled on thy burial-day, 

I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, 

And, turning from my nursery window, drew 

A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! 

But was it such ? — It was. — Where thou art gone, 

Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. 

May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, 

The parting word shall pass my lips no more ! 

Thy maidens grieved themselves at my concern, 

Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. 

What ardently I wished, I long believed, 

And, disappointed still, was still deceived. 

By expectation every day beguiled, 

Dupe of to-morrow, even from a child. 

Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, 

Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, 

I learned at last submission to my lot, 

But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot." 

He said, when quite an old man, in speaking of her : 
" Not a week passes (perhaps I might with equal veracity 
say a day) in which I do not think of her ; such was the 
impression her tenderness made upon me, though the 
opportunity she had for showing it was so short." 

He was at once taken from the nursery, and sent from 
home to a boarding-school, where the timid, homesick child 
suffered much from loneliness and the cruelty of a boy 
many years older, practised so secretly that no one sus- 
pected it for a long time, but it was at last found out, and 
the tyrant expelled. 

Cowper retained through life a painful recollection of 
the terror with which this boy inspired him. He says : 
" His savage treatment of me impressed such a dread of 
his figure upon my mind, that I well remember being afraid 
to lift my eyes upon him higher than his knees, and that I 
knew him better by his shoebuckles than by any other 
11* 



250 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

part of his clress. May the Lord pardon him, and may we 
meet in glory." 

This experience gave him a lasting dislike for schools 
of all kinds, which he afterward forcibly expressed in a 
poem called " Tirocinium, or a Review of Schools." His 
eyes now troubled him so much that he was placed under 
the care of an eminent oculist, where he remained two 
years, and was much relieved, thfcugh not wholly cured. 
At the end of this time, at the age of ten, he was removed 
by his father to Westminster, where, though often morbid 
and low-spirited, he enjoyed a good deal. He was a 
fine scholar, a favorite with his teachers, and very fond 
of out-door games, excelling in cricket and foot-ball. He 
speaks of this period as one in which, if not thoroughly 
happy, he was never really sad. He has given us a pic- 
ture which proves that he looked back with pleasure on 
that part of his boyhood : 

" Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, 
We love the play-place of our early days ; 
The scene is touching, and the heart is stone 
That feels not at that sight, and feels at none. 
The wall, on which we tried our graving skill, 
The very name we carved subsisting still ; 
The bench on which we sat while deep employed, 
Though mangled, hacked, and hewed, yet not destroyed. 
The little ones, unbuttoned, glowing hot, 
Playing our games, and on the very spot, 
As happy as we onae to kneel, and draw 
The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw ; 
To pitch the ball into the grounded hat, 
Or drive it devious with a dext'rous pat ; 
The pleasing spectacle at once excites 
Such recollections of our own delights, 
That viewing it, we seem almost to obtain 
Our innocent, sweet, simple years again. 
This fond attachment to the well-known place, 
Where first we started into life's long race, 



COWPEE. 251 

Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, 
We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day." 

" At the age of eighteen," says Cowper, " being toler- 
ably well furnished with grammatical knowledge, but as 
ignorant of all kinds of religion as the satchel on my back, 
I was taken from Westminster, and, having spent about 
nine months at borne, was sent to acquire the practice of 
law with an attorney." And here comes a really sunny 
spot in the poet's life. With his fellow-apprentice, a refrac- 
tory but clever boy, afterward Lord-Chancellor Thurlow, 
he pretended to study, but accomplished very little. 
Writing to his cousin, Lady Hesketh, many years after- 
ward, he says : "I did actually live three, years with Mr. 
Chapman, a solicitor, that is to say, I slept three years in 
his house, but I lived, that is to say, I spent my days in 
Southampton Row, as you very well remember. There 
was I and the future lord chancellor employed from morn- 
ing to night in giggling and making giggle, instead of 
studying the law. Oh, fie, cousin ! how eould you do so ? " 

This profession had been selected for him by his father, 
because his connections were such that he would, without 
doubt, be well provided for by them ; and he had given 
proof at Westminster of two qualifications for success — 
talent and application. Sometimes he attributed his fail- 
ure to lack of fitness for the study. He says :• " Whatever 
Nature expressly designed me for, I have never* been able 
to conjecture, I seem to myself so universally disqualified 
for the common and customary occupations and amuse- 
ments of mankind." Again, he would blame himself for 
his idleness ; and, writing to a young friend who was study- 
ing law, he says : " You do well, my dear sir, to improve 
your opportunity; to speak in the rural phrase, this is 
your sowing-time ; and the sheaves you look for can never 
be yours unless you make that use of it. The color of 
our whole life is greatly such as the first three or four 



252 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

years in which we are our own masters make it. Then 
it is that we may be said to shape our destiny, and to 
treasure up for ourselves a series of future successes or 
disappointments. Had I employed my time as wisely as 
you in a situation very similar to yours, I had never been 
a poet perhaps, but I might by this time have acquired 
a character of more importance in society, and a situation 
in which my friends would have been better pleased to 
see me. The only use I can make of myself now — at least 
the best — is to serve as a terror to others, when occasion 
may happen to offer, that they may escape (as far as my 
admonitions can have any weight with them) my folly 
and my fate." 

Called to the bar in 1754, he lived rather an idle life 
in his Temple chambers ; more employed with literature 
than law ; writing often for the serials of the day : but 
more, perhaps, with love than literature ; for be was fas- 
cinated by one of those pretty cousins with whom he used 
to " giggle " in Southampton Row — Theodora, a younger 
sister of his constant friend, Lady Hesketh. The attach- 
ment was mutual ; but when the affair became more 
serious, her father refused his consent to the marriage, 
on the ground that they were too nearly related. Perhaps 
he might have seen in Cowper's moody, morbid temper- 
ament another reason -for breaking up the romance. At 
any rate, ]jis determination was unalterable, and the cous- 
ins soon parted, never to meet on earth. 

Cowper apparently conquered this unfortunate senti- 
ment, which at first threw a darker coloring over his life 
and spirits ; but neither time nor absence diminished 
Theodora's constancy to her first and only love. 

His life in those airy chambers in the Inner Temple 
was not probably as dissipated as his own words would 
lead us to think, but still misspent, wasted in frivolous 
amusements and desultory reading. In his thirty-second 



cowper. 253 

year, he began to think seriously of his future. His father 
was dead, his patrimony nearly spent, and real poverty 
seemed before him. Major Cowper, a relative, who was 
anxious to help him, presented to him, in the year 1763, 
a valuable clerkship in the House of Lords, which required 
the holder to appear frequently before the House. The 
idea of thus appearing in public was, in his own words, 
" mortal poison." His friend then gave him a more pri- 
vate position, that of clerk of the journals, which he re- 
solved to accept, although he felt at the time as if he were 
receiving a " dagger in his heart." But, owing to some 
political and party opposition, the major's right of nomina- 
tion was called in question by his enemies, and a public 
examination of each candidate was demanded; and this 
future horror so preyed upon his morbidly-sensitive mind, 
that melancholy at last became madness, and death seemed 
better than the prospect before him. He tried to kill him- 
self in various ways, but was wonderfully preserved by 
God's mercy. His brother, terrified at his condition, 
placed him at once in a private asylum at St. Alban's, 
where he remained for eighteen months, enduring mental 
agonies which words fail to interpret. He felt that his 
soul was eternally lost, and describes himself as " in a 
strange and terrible darkness, my conscience scaring me, 
the avenger of blood pursuing me, and the city of refuge 
out of reach." Some verses composed in the asylum show 
his state of mind. They are so painfully sad, I will quote 
but two : 

" Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion, * 

Scarce can endure delay of execution ; 
Wait with impatient readiness to seize my 
Soul in a moment ! 

" Man disavows, and Deity disowns me, 
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter ; 
Therefore Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all 
Bolted against me ! " 



254 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

. At last there came a revulsion of feeling ; peace and 
happiness took the place of despair. In his own words : 
" Unless the Almighty arm had not been under me, I think 
I should have died of gratitude and joy. My eyes filled 
with tears, and my voice choked with transport ; I could 
only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with 
love and wonder." But the work of the Holy Spirit is 
best described in His own words : it was " joy unspeakable 
and full of glory. For many succeeding weeks tears were 
ready to flow, if I did but speak of the Gospel, or mention 
the name of Jesus. To rejoice day and night was all my 
employment. Too happy to sleep much, I thought it was 
lost time that was spent in slumber. Oh, that the ardor 
of my first love had continued ! But I have known many 
a lifeless and unhallowed hour since — long intervals of 
darkness, interrupted by short returns of peace and joy 
in believing." 

How beautifully he describes the healing of his wound- 
ed spirit by the Saviour : 

" I was a stricken deer, that left the herd 
Long since. • With many an arrow deep infixed 
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew 
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. 
There was I found by One who had Himself 
Been hurt by the archers. In His side he bore, 
And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars. 
With gentle force soliciting the darts, 
He drew them forth, and healed and bade me live." 

In that hymn so familiar to us all— 

" Oh for a closer walk with God — " 

he alludes to that period of peaceful hope. After his re- 
covery he did not wish to return to London, and his 
friends thought his decision a wise one, and subscribed 
among themselves an annual allowance, on which he could 
live frugally in retirement. 



cowper. 255 

" Far from the world, Lord, I flee, 
From strife and tumult far ; 
From scenes where Satan wages still 
His most successful war. 

" The calm retreat, the silent shade, 
With prayer and praise agree, 
And seem by Thy sweet bounty made 
For those who follow Thee." 

He soon found a quiet home, congenial and delightful, 
in the family of Rev. Mr. Unwin, clergyman at Hunting- 
don. He has given minute descriptions of the family and 
his life there. He says of Mrs. Unwin : " That woman is a 
blessing to me, and I never see her without being the 
better for her company. She has a very uncommon un- 
derstanding, has read much to excellent purpose, and is 
more polite than a duchess." 

Here is an account of the way in which he spent his 
time in that excellent 'household: "We breakfast com- 
monly between eight and nine ; till eleven, we read either 
the Scripture, or the sermons of some faithful preacher of 
these holy mysteries ; at eleven, we attend divine service, 
which is performed here twice every day; and, from 
twelve to three, we separate and amuse ourselves as we 
please. During that interval, I either read in my own 
apartment, or walk, or ride, or work in the garden. We 
seldom sit an hour after dinner, but, if the weather per- 
mits, adjourn to the garden, where, with Mrs. Unwin and 
her son, I have generally the pleasure of religious conversa- 
tion till tea-time. If it rains, or is too windy for walking, 
we either converse in-doors, or sing some hymns of Martin's 
collections, and, by the help of Mrs. Unwin' s harpsichord, 
make up a tolerable concert, in which our hearts are, I 
hope, the best and most musical performers. After tea, we 
sally forth to walk in good earnest. Mrs. Unwin is a good 
walker, and we have generally travelled about four miles, 



256 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

before we see home again. When the days are short, we 
make this excursion in the former part of the day, be- 
tween church-time and dinner. At night, we read and 
converse as before, till supper, and commonly finish the 
evening either with hymns or a sermon." 

In July of 1767, this pleasant home was broken up by 
the sudden death of Mr. TJnwin, who was killed by a fall 
from his horse, while on his way to church. Cowper 
says : " The effect of this awful dispensation will only be 
a change of the place of my abode. For I shall still, by 
God's leave, continue with Mrs. TJnwin, whose behavior to 
me has always been that of a mother to her son." 

They decided upon a removal to Olney, where the 
Rev. John Newton was curate ; indeed, the only motive 
which directed them in their choice, was a wish to be 
under his pastoral care. But this was hardly the best 
atmosphere for Cowper, always inclined to religious mel- 
ancholy. The good doctor insisted on his taking an ac- 
tive part in the prayer-meetings, and going with him to 
the bed of the dying sinner. This kept him in a constant 
state of anxiety and trepidation, and more than balanced 
the benefit to be gained from his society, He also urged 
the poet to write those hymns which we all love to read 
and repeat ; and I fear that, brooding over his own experi- 
ences, indulging in introspection and retrospection, as he 
did when composing them, with the death of his brother, 
which occurred at this time, were the causes of a return 
of his insanity. 

It was a review of the interpositions of Providence to 
save him from committing suicide, which led him to write 

" God moves in a mysterious way," 

and, looking back on the ecstasy which followed the gloom, 
he imagined himself sadly changed. 

Lady Hesketh spoke her mind very frankly on this 



cowpee. 257 

point: "Mr. [Newt on is an excellent man, I make no 
doubt," said she, " and to a strong-minded man like him- 
self, might be of great use, but to such a mind, such a 
tender mind, and to such a wounded, yet lively, imagina- 
tion as our cousin's, I am persuaded that eternal praying 
and preaching were too much ; nor could it, I think, be 
otherwise. I do not mean to give you my sentiments 
upon this conduct generally, but only as it might affect our 
cousin, and, indeed, for him, I think it could not be either 
proper or wholesome." 

In January, 1773, he was again decidedly insane, going 
over the dreary path he trod at St. Alban's, Mrs. Unwin 
devoting herself to him with unceasing vigilance and un- 
wearied devotion. Three years passed away before the 
cloud was removed. In his convalescence, he amused 
himself in various ways, petting pigeons, drawing land- 
scapes, making bird-cages, and taming three hares, one of 
which he has celebrated in " The Task " : 

" Well, one at last is safe. One sheltered hare 
Has never heard the sanguinary yell 
Of cruel man, exulting in her woes. 
Innocent partner of my peaceful home, 
Whom ten long years' experience of my care 
Has made at last familiar ; she has lost 
Much of her vigilant, instinctive dread, 
Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine. 
Yes, thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand 
That feeds thee ; thou mayst frolic on the floor 
At evening, and at night retire secure 
To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarmed. 
For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged 
All that is human in me to protect 
Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love. 
If I survive thee, I will dig thy grave, 
And when I place thee in it, sighing say, 
I knew at least one hare that had a friend." 

With returning health, the love of reading and writing 



258 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

also came back to him, and Mrs. TTnwin now urged him to 
write a poem of some length, giving as his subject, " The 
Progress of Error." It was soon accomplished, and was 
speedily followed by three other poems of the same kind, 
"Truth," "Table Talk," and " Expostulation," all being 
done within three months. The volume was issued in 
1782, but did not sell very well. Johnson, however, and 
Franklin, saw real merit in the modest volume, and proph- 
esied better things from the pen of the gentle recluse. 
He says of "Table Talk," in a letter to Dr. Newton: "It 
is a medley of many things, some that may be useful, and 
some that, for aught I know, may be very diverting. I 
am merry, that I may decoy people into my company ; and 
grave, that they may be the better for it. Now and then 
I put on the garb of a philosopher, and take the oppor- 
tunity, that disguise procures me, to drop a word in favor 
of religion. In short, there is some froth, and here - and 
there a bit of sweetmeat, which seems to entitle it justly 
to the name of a certain dish the ladies call a trifle. 
Whether all this management and contrivance be neces- 
sary, I do not know, but am inclined to suspect, that if 
my Muse was to go forth, clad in Quaker colors, without 
one bit of ribbon to enliven her appearance, she might walk 
from one end of London to the other, as little noticed as 
if she were one of the sisterhood indeed." 

In this same year Lady Austen came to Olney — a 
sparkling, witty, accomplished woman ; and to her we 
owe the warmest thanks for inspiring Cowper with a more 
cheerful spirit. Her conversation had as ' happy an effect 
upon him as the harp of David xfipon Saul. " Whenever 
the cloud seemed to be coming over him, her sprightly 
powers were exerted to dispel it. One afternoon, October, 
1782, when he appeared more than usually depressed, she 
told him the story of John Gilpin, which had been told 
her in her childhood, and which in her relation tickled his 



cowper. 259 

fancy as much as it has that of thousands and tens of 
thousands since in his. The next morning he said to her 
that he had been kept awake during the greater part of 
the night by thinking of the story and laughing at it,, and 
that he had turned it into a ballad. 

" I little thought," said Cowper, " when I was writing 
the history of John Gilpin, that he would appear in print. 
I intended to laugh, and to make two or three others 
laugh. Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous thing 
I ever wrote has been written in the saddest mood; and 
but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been writ- 
ten at all." 

He also wrote verses for " Sister Anne," as he called 
his new friend, to suit some of her favorite airs for the 
harpsichord and guitar. His " Dirge for the Royal George " 
was composed in this way. 

Here is a playful song, celebrating a walk in muddy 
weather, taken by Mrs. Unwin and himself: 

" THE DISTRESSED TRAVELLERS ; OR, LABOR IX VAIN. 

" An excellent new Song to a Tune never mng before. 

" I sing of a journey to Clifton, 

We would have performed if we could, 
Without cart or barrow to lift on 
Poor Mary and me through the mud. 
Slee sla slud, 
Stuck in the mud ; 
Oh, it is pretty to wade through' a flood ! 

" So away we went, slipping and sliding — 

Hop, hop, a la mode de deux frogs ; 
• 'Tis near as good walking as riding, 

When ladies are dressed in their clogs. 
Wheels, no doubt. 
Go briskly about ; 
But they clatter, and rattle, and make such a rout ! 



260 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

SHE. 

" Well ; now I protest it is charming ; 
How finely the weather improves ! 
That cloud, though, is rather alarming — 
How slowly and stately it moves ! 

HE. 

" Pshaw ! never mind, 
'Tis not in the wind : 
We're travelling south, and shall leave it behind. 

SHE. 

" I am glad we are come for an airing, 
For folks may be pounded and penned, 
While they grow rusty, not caring 
To stir half a mile to the end. 

HE. 

" The longer we stay, 
The longer we may ; 
It's a folly to think about weather or way. 

SHE. 

" But now I begin to be frighted ; 

If I fall, what a way I should roll ! 

I am glad that the bridge was indicted. 

Stop ! stop ! I am sunk in a hole ! 

HE. 

" Nay, nfver care ! 
'Tis a common affair ; 
You'll not be the last that will set a foot there. 

SHE. 

" Let me now breathe a little, and ponder 
On what it were better to do — 
That terrible lane I see yonder, 
I think we shall never get through ! 

HE. 

11 So think I ; 
But, by-the-by, 
We never shall know if we never shall try. 



COWPER. 261 

SHE. 

" But should we get there, how shall we get home ? 
What a terrible deal of bad road we have passed ! 
Slipping and sliding ; and if we should come 
To a difficult stile, I am ruined at last V 
Oh, this lane ! 
Now it is plain 
That struggling and striving is labor in vain ! 

HE. 

" Stick fast there, while I go and look. 

SHE. 

" Don't go away, for fear I should fall. 

HE. 

" I have examined it every nook ; 
And what you have here is a sample of all. 

Come, wheel around, 

The dirt we have found 
Would be an estate at a farthing, a pound. 

" Now, Sister Anne, the guitar you must take ; 
Set it, and sing it, and make it a song. 
I have varied the verse for variety's sake, 
And cut it off short, because it was long. 
'Tis hobbling and lame, 
Which critics won't blame, 
For the sense and the sound, they say, should be the same." 

His spirits were buoyant when not affected by the 
malady which influenced him in winter more than any 
other season. January was the hardest month for him : 
he always looked forward to it with dread. He loved the 
summer months, when he could write and lounge in the 
myrtle-shaded summer-house, and work in the garden. 
He says : " In summer-time, I am as giddy-headed as a 
boy, and can, settle to nothing. Winter condenses me, and 
makes me lumpish and sober, and then I can read all day 
long." 



262 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

His letters were often written in rhyme ; and he said 
events were as rare at Olney as cucumbers in December. 
He had the rare power of investing the simplest topic 
with a charm. - Here is an example of this : 

"My 12, 1781. 
" To the Rev. John Newton — 

" My very dear Friend : I am going to send, what, 
when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say, 
I suppose, there's nobody knows, whether what I have 
got, be verse or not ; by the tune and the time, it ought 
to be rhyme ; but if it be, did you ever see, of late or of 
yore, such a ditty before ? The thought did occur, to me 
and to her, as madam and I, did walk and not fly, over 
the hills and dales, with spreading sails, before it was 
dark to Weston Park. 

" The news at Oney is little or noney ; but such as it 
is, I send it, viz. : Poor Mr. Peace cannot yet cease, ad- 
dling his head with what you said, and has left parish- 
church quite in the lurch, having almost swore to go there 
no more. 

" Page and his wife, that made such a strife, we met 
them twain in Dog-lane ; we gave them the wall, and that 
was all. For Mr. Scott, we have seen him not, except as 
he passed, in a wonderful haste, to see a friend in Silver 
End. Mrs. Jones proposes, ere July closes, that she and 
her sister, and her Jones mister, and we that are here, our 
course shall steer, to dine in the Spinney ; but for a 
guinea, if the weather should hold, so hot and so cold, we 
had better by far, stay where we are. For the grass 
there grows, while nobody mows (which is very wrong), 
so rank and long, that so to speak, 'tis at least a week, if 
it happens to rain, ere it dries again. 

" I have writ Charity, not for popularity, but as well 
as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the Reviewer 
should say c To be sure, the gentleman's Muse, wears 



cowper. 283 

Methodist shoes ; you may know by her pace, and talk 
about grace, that she and her bard have little regard, for 
the taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoidening 
play, of the modern day ; and though she assume a bor- 
rowed plume, and here and there wear a tittering air, 'tis 
only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as 
they go that way, by a. production on a new construction. 
She has baited her trap in hopes to snap all that may 
come, with a sugar-plum.' 

" His opinion in this, will not be amiss ; 'tis what 

I intend, my principal end ; and if I succeed, and folks 
should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, 
I shall think I am paid, for all I have said and all I have 
done, though I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as 
far as from hence, to the end of my sense, and by hook or 
crook, write another book, if I live and am here another 
year. I have heard before, of a room with a floor, laid 
upon springs, and such-like things, with so much art, in 
every part, that when you went in, you was forced to be- 
gin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming 
about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a fig- 
ure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing ; 
and now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you 
dance, and as you advance, will keep you still though 
against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you 
come to an end of what I have penned ; which that you 
may do, ere madam and you are quite worn out with jig- 
ging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow 
profound, down to the ground, from your humble me, 

"W. C. 

" P. S. — When I concluded, doubtless you did think 
me right, as well you might, in saying what I said of Scott ; 
and then it was true, but now it is due to him to note, that 
since I wrote, himself and he has visited me." 
12 



264 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Soon after the publication of " John Gilpin," Lady- 
Austen begged him to try blank verse. 

"But," said he, " I have no subject." 

" Oh ! you can write on any thing," was the quick re- 
ply — " take this sofa." 

Hence the beginning of " The Task," which took all 
English hearts by storm. 

" I sing the sofa. — 
The theme though humble, yet august and proud 
The occasion — for the fair commands the song." 

The poem came out just at the right time, when the 
public mind was prepared to receive it, having been 
trained by Gray and Thomson to love Nature^ and sim- 
ple descriptions of common things. Then, too, there was 
no other distinguished poet on the field to compete with 
him. He says : " My descriptions are all from nature ; 
not one of them second-handed. My delineations of the 
heart are from my own experience." 

Southey says : " Were I to say, that a poet finds his 
best advisers among* his female friends, it would be speak- 
ing from my own experience, and the greatest poet of the 
age (Wordsworth) would confirm it by his. But never 
was poet more indebted to such friends than Cowper. 
Had it not been for Mrs. Unwin, he Avould probably never 
have appeared in his own person as an author; had it not 
been for Lady Austen, he would never have been a popu- 
lar poet." 

Cowper next undertook to translate Homer into Eng- 
lish verse, working regularly at the rate of forty lines a 
day. He was dissatisfied with Pope's version, saying he 
had failed to catch Homer's spirit. But his effort to in- 
terpret him more happily was not successful, although the 
translation was well received. 

In 1796 he lost his dearest friend, Mary Unwin, his 



cowper. 265 

second mother, to whom he has written two beautiful 
poems. I will give you the sonnet — one can hardly read 
it without tears : 

" Mary, I want a lyre with other strings, 
Such aid from Heaven as some have feigned they drew, 
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new 
And undebasecl by praise of meaner things, 
That ere through age or woe I shed my wings, 
I may record thy worth, with honor due, 
In verse as musical as thou art true, 
And that immortalizes. whom it sings ; 
But thou hast little need. There is a Book, 
By seraph writ, with beams of heavenly light, 
On which the eyes of God not rarely look — 
A chronicle of actions, just and bright. 
There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine, 
And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine." 

A pension of three hundred pounds from the king 
comforted his declining days, which were clouded by the 
old sorrow. Kind friends drew around him in those last 
sad years, which he described as a " universal blank." 

On the morning of April 25, 1800, he expired — so 
peacefully that, though surrounded by friends, no one per- 
ceived the moment of his departure. The last expression 
on his countenance was that of calmness and composure, 
mingled with holy surprise. Death seemed a blessed 
release to the lifelong sufferer ; all doubts removed — safe 
home at last — 

" Secure in Jesus' love." 

I cannot close this sketch more appropriately than 
with these words from Collier : 

" If we compare our English literature to a beautiful 
garden, where Milton lifts his head to heaven in the spot- 
less chalice of the tall white lily, and Shakespeare scatters 
his dramas round him in beds of fragrant roses, blushing 



266 



HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 



with a thousand various shades — some stained to the core 
as if with blood, others unfolding their fair pink petals, 
with a lovely smile to the summer sun — what shall we find 
in shrub or flower so like the timid, shrinking spirit of 
William Cowper, as that delicate sensitive-plant, whose 
leaves, folding up at the slightest touch, cannot bear even 
the brighter rays of the cherishing sun ? " 




cowpee's cottage. 




BURNS. 



" Through all his tuneful heart how strong 

The human feeling gushes, 
The very moonlight of his song 

Is warm with smiles and blushes ! 
Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, 

So ' Bonnie Doon' but tarry ; 
Blot out the epic's stately rhyme, 

But spare his ' Highland Mary.' " 

The greatest poet, beyond all comparison, that Scot- 
land has produced, was Robert Burns, born on the 25th 
of January, 1759, in a clay-built cottage, raised by his 
father's own hands, oft the banks of the Doon, at the ham- 
let of Alloway, in Ayrshire. His father, though a hard- 
handed peasant-farmer of the humblest class, was every 
inch a man, an earnest Christian, and fully impressed with 
the importance of an education for his children. Yet his 
life was not a sunny one ; cramped by poverty, and made 
despondent by ill-luck, there was an almost habitual gloom 
on his brow. 



268 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" Mighty events turn on a straw ; the crossing of a 
brook decides the conquest of the world. Had this Wil- 
liam Burns's small seven acres of nursery-ground any wise 
prospered, the boy Robert had been sent to school, had 
struggled forward, as so many weaker men do, to some 
university ; come forth not a rustic wonder, but as a regu- 
lar, well-trained, intellectual workman, and changed the 
whole course of British literature, for it lay in him to have 
done this ! But the nursery did not prosper ; poverty 
sank his whole family below the help of even our cheap 
school system ; Burns remained a hard- worked ploughboy, 
and British literature took its own course." 

He did, however, attend school for a few years, and 
made good use of his time. His teacher tells us that 
he excelled all boys of his own age, and took rank above 
several who were his seniors. The New Testament, the 
Bible, the English Grammar, and Mason's " Collection of 
Verse and Prose," laid the foundation of devotion and 
knowledge. He says of himself: "At those years I was 
by no means a favorite with anybody. I was a good 
deal noted for "a retentive memory, a stubborn, sturdy 
something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot 
piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. 
Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made 
an excellent English scholar, and by the time I was ten 
or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, 
verbs, and particles. The first two books I ever read in 
private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two 
books I ever read since, were the ' Life of Hannibal,' and 
the ' History of Sir William Wallace.' Hannibal gave my 
young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures 
after the recruiting-drum and bagpipe, and wish myself 
tall enough to be a soldier ; while the story of Wallace 
poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil 
along them, till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest." 



burxs. 269 

Those who are familiar with " Bruce' s Address " (and 
who is not ? ) will see how those early influences became a 
part of himself. Carlyle says : "Why should we speak 
of c Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled,' since all know it from 
the king to the meanest of his subjects ? This dithyrambic 
was composed on horseback, in riding in the middle of 
tempests, over the wildest Galloway moor, in company 
with a friend, who, observing the poet's looks, forbore to 
speak— judiciously enough — for a man composing ' Bruce's 
Address ' might be unsafe to trifle with. Doubtless this 
stern hymn was singing itself as he formed it, through the 
soul of Burns, but, to the external ear, it should be sung 
with the throat of the whirlwind. So long as there is 
warm blood in the heart of Scotchman or man, it will 
move in fierce thrills under this war-ode, the best, we be- 
lieve, that was ever written by any pen." 

But by far the greater part of Burns's education was 
gained at home. His mother, a truly religious woman, 
with a warm heart and remarkably even temper, was 
devoted to her son "Robbie," who inherited her large, 
lustrous eyes, black as the night and brilliant as its stars. 

The sweet old ballads she used to chant for him, all 
wore a religious hue, and from them he learned the art 
of adding a moral to his verses in a way unobtrusive and 
graceful. And an ignorant, superstitious old woman, who 
lived in their family, furnished him another school of 
poetry. He says : . " She had, I suppose, the largest col- 
lection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, 
ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kel- 
pies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, can- 
traips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other 
trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poesie, but 
had so strong an effect upon my imagination, that to this 
hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a look- 
out in suspicious places." 



270 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Let us speak the name of Jenny Wilson with reverence, 
ignorant and credulous though she was, for there is no 
doubt that her wonderful tales gave color and character 
to many of Burns' s finest effusions. 

Edna Dean Proctor, whom Whittier, I think, pronounces 
the finest female poet in America, has given a very pretty 
version of his early associations : 

" With his head upon her bosom, 

In the firelight's ruddy glow, 
Plaintive songs his mother sung him, 

Airs of Scotland, long ago ; 
And he thrilled at tales of heroes, 

Or of ghosts and warlocks grim, 
Till he felt a chilly horror 

Creeping over every limb. 
And he shuddered as the tempest 

Shook the window with its moan, 
Lest the sobbing and the sighing 

Were a murdered victim's groan ; 
Now his name is linked with story, 

And his life is set to song — 
All that Scotland was of glory 

Floats with Robert Burns along. 
And King of Hearts he reigns to-day, 

While the noble throng around him ; 
God be praised that a man has sway, 

And the wide world's love has crowned him ! " 

The Scottish peasantry of that time were much better 
informed than you would suppose, and the father of Burns 
was unusually intelligent. Sitting in his easy-chair by the 
ingle-side, he taught his son, not lessons of morality alone, 
but the traditionary history of Scotland — all, in fact, that 
he was able to impart of useful knowledge. 

It was a recollection of his happy home, and his good 
father's domestic devotions, that enabled Burns to charm 
the world with those faithful, faultless pictures in the 
"Cotter's Saturday Night." Any sketch of this poet 



BURNS. 271 

would be incomplete without the whole of this charming 
tribute to the pleasures found in the peasant's cottage, 
which I will copy from " Cleveland's Compendium," where 
the Scotch is explained in foot-notes : 

"THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 

11 Inscribed to Robert Aiken, Esq, 

" My loved, my honored, much respected friend ! 
No mercenary bard his homage pays ; 
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end ; 
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise : 
To yon I sing, in simple Scottish lays, 
The lowly train in life's sequestered scene ; 
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways ; 
What Aiken in a cottage would have been ; 
Ah ! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween. 

" November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 
The shortening winter-day is near a close ; 
The miry beasts retreating frae l the pleugh ; 

The blackening trains o' craws to their repose ; 
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes ; 

This night his weekly moil 2 is at an end, 
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, 
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. 

" At length his lonely cot appears in view, 
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
Th' expectant wee 3 things, toddlin, 4 stacher 5 through 

To meet their dad, wi' flicterin' 6 noise an' glee. 
His wee bit ingle, 7 blinkin 8 bonnily. 

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, 
The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 
Does a' 9 his weary carking 10 cares beguile, 
An' makes him quite forget his labor and his toil. 

" Belyve n the elder bairns come drappin in, 
At service out, amang the farmers roun' ; 

1 From. 2 Labor. 3 Little. 4 Tottering in their walk. 5 Stagger. 

6 Fluttering. 7 Fire. 8 Shining at intervals. 9 A11. 10 Consuming. "By-and-by. 

12* 



272 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Some ca' ! the pleugh, some herd, some tentie 2 rin 
A cannie 3 errand to a neebor town : 

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, 
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, 

Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw 4 new gown, 
Or deposit her sair-won 5 penny-fee, 6 
To help their parents dear, if they in hardship be. 

""WV joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet, 
An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers ; 7 
The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet ; 

Each tells the unco 8 that he sees or hears ; 
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; 

Anticipation forward points the view ; 
The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers, 

Gars 9 auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; 
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 

11 Their master's and their mistress's command, 
The younkers a' are warned to obey ; 
An' mind their labors wi' an eydent 10 hand, 

An' ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk or play : 
* An', ! be sure to fear the Lord alway ! 

An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night ! 
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, 
Implore His counsel and assisting might : 
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright ! ' 

" But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door ; 
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, 
Tells how a neebor lad cam' o'er the moor, 

To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
The wily mother sees the conscious flame 

Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; 
With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, 
While Jenny hafnins u is afraid to speak ; 
Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild worthless rake. 



1 Drive. 2 Cautious. 3 Kindly dexterous. 

4 Fine, handsome. 5 Sorely won. 6 Wages. 

7 Asks. 8 News. 9 Makes. 10 Diligent. " Partly. 



BTTKtfS. 273 

" Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben ; 1 
A strappan 2 youth, he taks the mother's eye ; 
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill-ta'en ; 

The father cracks 3 of horses, pleughs, and kye. 4 
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, 

But blate 5 an' laithfu', 6 scarce can weel behave ; 
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 
What maks the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave, 
Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. 7 

" 0, happy love ! where love like this is found ! 
heartfelt raptures ! bliss beyond compare ! 
I've paced much this weary, mortal round, 

And sage experience bids me this declare, — 
* If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, 

One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, 
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, 
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.' 

"Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, — 
A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! 
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, 

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 
Curse on his perjured arts ! dissembling smooth ! 

Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled ? 
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, 8 

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child ? 
Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild ? 

" But now the supper crowns their simple board ! 

The healsome parritch, 9 chief o' Scotia's food : 
The soupe 10 their only hawkie u does afford, 

That 'yont 12 the hallan 13 snugly chows her cood : 
The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, 

To grace the lad, her weel-hained u kebbuck, 15 fell, 16 
An' aft he's pressed, an' aft he ca's it good ; 

1 Into the parlor. 2 Tall and handsome. 3 Converses. * Kine, cow. 

5 Bashful. 6 Reluctant. 7 The rest, the others. 

8 Mercy, kind feeling. 9 Oatmeal pudding. 10 Sauce, milk. 

11 A pet name for a cow. 12 Beyond. 13 A partition wall in a cottage. 
14 Carefully preserved. 15 A cheese. 16 Biting to the taste. 

12* 



274 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell, 
How 'twas a towmond l auld, 2 sin 3 lint was i' the bell. 4 

" The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 

They round the ingle form a circle wide ; 

The sire 5 turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, 

The big Ha'-Bible, 6 ance his father's pride ; 
His bonnet reverently is laid aside, 

His lyart 7 haffets 8 wearin' thin an' bare ; 
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
He wales 9 a portion with judicious care ; 
And c Let us worship God,' he says, wi' solemn air. 

" They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim ; 
Perhaps Dundee's 10 wild warbling measures rise, 

Or plaintive Martyrs, 10 worthy of the name ; 
Or noble Elgin 10 beats the heavenward flame, 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 
Compared with these, Italian thrills are tame ; 
The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 

1 Twelve months. 2 Old. 3 Since. 4 Flax was in blossom. 

5 This picture, as all the world knows, he drew from his father. He was him- 
self, in imagination, again one of the " wee things " that ran to meet him ; and 
" the priest-like father " had long worn that aspect before the poet's eyes, though 
he died before he was threescore. "I have always considered William Burns •• 
(the father), says Murdoch, " as by far the best of the human race that I ever had 
the pleasure of being acquainted with, and many a worthy character I have 
known. He was a tender and affectionate father, and took pleasure in leading 
his children in the paths of virtue. I must not pretend to give you a description 
of all the manly qualities, the rational and Christian virtues of the venerable 
Burns. I shall only add, that he practised every known duty, and avoided every 
thing that was criminal. 1 ' The following is the " Epitaph " which the son wrote 
for him: 

" O ye, whose cheek the tear of pity stains, 
Draw near, with pious reverence, and attend ! 
Here lie the loving husband's dear remains, 

The tender father, and the generous friend : 
The pitying heart that felt for human woe ; 

The dauntless heart that feared no human pride ; 
The friend of man, to vice alone a foe, 
' For e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side.' " 
6 The great Bible kept in the hall. 7 Gray. 

8 The temples, the sides of the head. " 9 Chooses. 

10 The names of Scottish psalm-tunes. 



burns. 275 

" The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 
How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
Or, how the Royal Bard J did groaning lie 

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire ; 
Or^ Job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry ; 
Or, rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

" Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, 

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ; 
How He, who bore in heaven the second name, 

Had not on earth whereon to lay His head : 
How His first followers and servants sped, 

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : 
How he, 2 who lone in Patmos 3 banished, 
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, 
And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command. 

" Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King, 
The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
Hope l springs exulting on triumphant wing,' 

That thus they all shall meet in future days ; 
There ever bask in uncreated rays, 

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 
Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
In such society, yet still more dear, 
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. 

" Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, 
In all the pomp of method and of art, 
When men display to congregations wide 

Devotion's every grace, except the heart ! 
The power, incensed, the pageant will desert, 
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 4 
But haply, in some cottage far apart, 

May hear, well-pleased, the language of the soul ; 
And in His book of life the inmates poor enroll. 

1 David. 2 St. John. 

3 An inland in the Archipelago, where John is supposed to have written the 
book of Revelation. 4 Priestly vestment. 



276 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" Then homeward all take, off their several way ; 
The youngling cottagers retire to rest ; 
The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request 
That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest, 

And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, 
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 
For them and for their little ones provide ; 
But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. 

" From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad ; 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 
'An honest man's the noblest work of God ; ' 
And certes, 1 in fair virtue's heavenly road, 

The cottage leaves the palace far behind : 
What is a lordling's pomp ? a cumbrous load, 
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined ! 

" Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ! 
And, ! may Heaven their simple lives prevent 

From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! 
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 
A virtuous populace may rise the while, 
And stand, a wall of fire, around their much-loved isle. 

" Thou ! who poured the patriotic tide 

That streamed through Wallace's 2 undaunted heart, 
Who dared to, nobly, stem tyrannic pride, 

Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
(The patriot's God peculiarly Thou art, 

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward ! ) 
never, never, Scotia's realm desert : 
But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! 

1 Certainly. 2 Sir William Wallace, the celebrated Scottish patriot. 



burns. 277 

It is the true poet alone who finds such beauty and 
dignity in the humblest scenes of life, and Burns felt all 
that he expressed. 

His father had a choice though limited selection of 
books, all of which he read eagerly and thoroughly. 
These, with a fortnight's French, in which he advanced as 
far as Telemachus, gave him a better education than 
many young men possess when they enter the university. 
But he had yet other teachers : " Out on the fields of Moss- 
giel, amid the birds and wild-flowers of a Lowland farm, 
he learned his finest lessons, and conned them with all his 
earnest heart, as he held the handles of the plough. A 
little heap of leaves and stubble, torn to pieces by the 
ruthless ploughshare, one cold November day, exposes to 
the frosty wind a poor wee field-mouse, that starts fright- 
ened from the ruin. The tender heart of the poet- 
ploughman swells and bubbles into song. And again, 
when April is weeping on the field, the crushing of a 
crimson-tipped daisy beneath the up-turned furrow, draws 
from the same gentle heart a sweet, compassionate lament, 
and exquisite comparisons. Poems like those to the 
Mouse and the Daisy, are true wild-flowers, touched with 
a fairy grace, and breathing a delicate fragrance, such as 
the blossoms of no cultured garden can ever boast." 

I long to give you both of these, but must content my- 
self with the latter, which contains so sad, so truthful a 
prophecy of his own fate : 

" TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY. 

" Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 
Thou's met me in an eyil hour ; 
For I maun crush amang the stoure 

Thy slender stem : 
To spare them now is past my power, 
Thou bonnie crein. 



278 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

" Alas ! it's no thy neibor sweet, 
The bonnie Lark, companion meet, 
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, 

Wi' spreckled breast, 
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet 

The purpling east ! 

" Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
Upon thy early, humble birth ; 
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 

Amid the storm, 
Scarce reared above the parent earth 

Thy tender form. 

" The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, 
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield ; 
But thou beneath the random bield 

0' clod or stane 
Adorns the histie stibble-field, 

Unseen, alane. 

" There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, 
Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise ; 
But now the share uptears thy bed, 

And low thou lies ! 

" Such is the fate of artless maid, 
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade ! 
By love's simplicity betrayed, 

And guileless trust, 
Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid 

Low i' the dust. 

" Such is the fate of simple bard 
On life's rough ocean luckless starred ! 
Unskilful he to note the card 

Of prudent lore, 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 
And whelm him o'er. 

" Such fate to suffering worth is given, 
Who long with wants and woes has striven, 



burns/ 279 

By human pride or cunning driven 

To misery's brink, 
Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven, 

He, ruined, sink ! 

" Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate, 
That fate is thine — no distant date ; 
Stern Kuin's ploughshare drives, elate, 

Full on thy bloom, 
Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight 

Shall be thy doom ! " 

It was Love's young dream which really roused the 
poetic fire. 

"For my own part," he observes, "I never had the 
least thought or inclination of turning poet, till I once 
got heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were, in 
a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart. Tou 
know our country custom of coupling a man and woman 
together, as partners in the labors of harvest. In my fif- 
teenth autumn, my partner was a bewitching creature, a 
year younger than myself. My scarcity of English, de- 
nies me the power of doing her justice in that language, 
but you know the Scottish idiom — 'she was a bonnie, 
sweet, sonsie lassie.' In short, she altogether, unwittingly 
to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which, 
in spite of acid disappointment, gin-house prudence^ and 
bookworm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human 
joys, our dearest blessing here below. How she caught 
the contagion, I cannot tell. Tou medical people talk 
much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, 
etc., but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed, I did 
not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind 
with her, when returning in the evening from our labors ; 
why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill 
like an iEolian harp, and, particularly, why my pulse beat 
such a furious rattan, when I looked and fingered over her 



280 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH TOETS. 

little Land, to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. 
Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sang sweetly, 
and it was her favorite reel to which I attempted giving 
an embodied vehicle in rhyme. Thus with me began 
love and poetry." 

He owns that his heart was completely tinder, always 
lighted up by some goddess or other, and it would be no 
easy matter to count the "Marys, Bellas, and Elizas," 
the Peggys and the Nannies O, who, in turn, captiva- 
ted the susceptible poet, before he settled as a prosy 
Benedict. He had the same creed in love-affairs that we 
find in one of Moore's melodies : 

" Then, oil what pleasure, wherever we roam, 

To be doomed to find something still that is dear ; 
And when far away from the lips that we love, 

"We've but to make love to the lips that are near ! " 

" Highland Mary," however, who inspired several of 
his best songs, and Jean Armour, who afterward became , 
his dearly-loved wife, are the most prominent names in 
the long list. 

He was an awkward, ungainly youth, with no beauty 
but his eyes, which shone, as some one said, like coach- 
lamps in a dark night ; but his eloquence rarely failed to 
produce the desired effect. 

One of the many pretty maidens, upon whom he had 
tried his power, said : " Open your eyes and shut your 
ears wi' Rob Burns, and there's nae fear o' your heart ; 
but close your eyes and open your ears, and you'll lose it." 

He was now working on the farm with his father and 
his brother Gilbert, "toiling like a galley-slave," until 
both soul and body were in danger of being crushed (like 
the daisy he has immortalized) beneath the weight of the 
farrow. Gilbert touchingly describes those many anxious 
days : 

" My brother, at the age of fifteen, was the principal 



BURNS. 281 

laborer on the farm, for -we had no hired servant, male 
or female. The anguish of mind we felt at our tender 
years, under these straits and difficulties, was very great. 
To think of our father growing old — for he was now 
above fifty, broken down with the long-continued fatigues 
of his life, with a wife and five children and in a declining 
state of circumstances — these reflections produced in my 
brother's mind and mine sensations of the deepest dis- 
tress." 

Burns was so ambitious to excel in every thing, that 
although this life was far from his taste, he used to love 
to outdo all his neighbors ; and it is said that he could 
draw the straightest furrow on his field, sow the largest 
quantity of seed-corn in a day, and mow the most rye-grass 
and clover of any farmer in the dale. If ever equalled, 
he would conquer by a witty repartee. 

After a hard strife on the harvest-field one day, his 
rival said, " Robert, I'm no sae far behind this time, I'm 
thinkin'." " John," said he, in a whisper, " you're behind 
in something yet. I made a sang while I was a stooJcin ! " 

But sadder experiences were in store for the poet- 
ploughman. His father, who had long been in ill-health, 
was deeply in debt and harassed by constant duns from 
merciless creditors, and it was the hand of death alone 
that saved him from the horrors of a jail. The old home 
passed at once into other hands, and the afflicted family 
leased a neighboring farm, hoping by their united efforts 
to at least make a comfortable living. But fortune did 
not smile. Frosty springs and late summers, for four 
years in succession, put them back sadly : the land itself 
was poor, and all went wrong. Burns worked well, and 
did not dislike a farmer's life ; but his soul was full of 
music that must have expression in words : so he com- 
posed while guiding the plough, or with the reaping-hook 
in his hand. Some of his best poems and songs were 



282 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

produced in this way. Of course, this did not benefit the 
crops, or fill his empty purse. 

" He who pens an ode on his sheep, when he should be 
driving them forth to pasture ; who stops his plough in 
the half-drawn furrow, to rhyme about the flowers which 
he buries ; who sees visions on his way from market ; who 
writes an ode on the horse he is about to yoke, and a bal- 
lad on the girl who shows the whitest hands and brightest 
eyes among his reapers, has no chance of ever growing 
opulent, or of purchasing the fields on which he toils." 

Quite discouraged at last, Burns resolved to give up 
the farm, and try his fortune in the West Indies. To 
meet the expenses of the journey, he collected his poems, 
and they were published by subscription, many kind 
friends standing by him in this trying hour. Although 
the want of money induced him to make himself known 
as a poet, yet he appreciated the worth of his rhymes, and 
believed in their success. He said afterward to Moore : 
" I thought they had merit ; and it was a delicious idea 
that I should be called a clever fellow, even though it 
should never reach my ears — a poor negro-driver, or per- 
haps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone to the 
world of spirits." 

You see he took rather a blue view of life, as was but 
natural, with absolute want staring him in the face. He 
even suffered for food : a piece of oat-cake and a bottle 
of twopenny ale often made his dinner when correcting 
the proof-sheets of his volume. He had been long attached 
to Jean Armour; but her father, a rigidly devout man, 
disliked the connection ; and when he discovered that they 
had been privately married, without his sanction or that 
of the kirk, his anxiety changed to anger, and, tearing the 
marriage-certificate from his daughter's trembling hands, 
threw it into the fire. 

Jean obeyed her father, and refused to see her lover, 



bursts. % 283 

who now became utterly despondent and wretched. He 
forgot how greatly he had sinned in deceiving her par- 
ents, forgot her distress, and indulged in the wildest 
grief. He said : " I have tried often to forget her ; I have 
run into all kinds of dissipations and riots, mason-meet- 
ings, drinking-matches, and other mischiefs, to drive her 
out of my head, but all in vain. And now for a grand 
cure : the ship is on her way home that is to take me out 
to Jamaica ; and then farewell, dear old Scotland ! and 
farewell, dear, ungrateful Jean! for never, never, will I 
see you more ! His good-by to the " Bonnie Banks of 
Ayr " is very pathetic. You may like to recall the last 
verse : 

" Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales, 
Her heathy moors and winding vales ; 
The scenes where wretched fancy roves, 
Pursuing past, unhappy loves ! 
Farewell, my friends ! farewell my foes ! 
My peace with these, my love with those — 
The bursting tears my heart declare, 
Farewell the bonnie banks of Ayr." 

He was a mason, and addressed a farewell also to the 
brethren of his lodge, which produced a great effect upon 
them. An old farmer of Ayrshire, thus tells the story of 
that leave-taking : 

"He was quite late in coming that night — a thing 
quite uncommon wi' him. He came at last. I never in 
my life saw such an alteration in ony body. He looked 
bigger-like than usual and wild-like. His een seemed 
stern and his cheeks fa'n in. He sat down in the chair as 
master. He looked round at us. I thought that he looked 
through me, $nd I lost the grip of the beginning o' my 
speech ; and no, for the life o' me, could I get it again 
that night. He apologized for being late. He had been 
getting a' things 'ready for going abroad. * He could get 



284 * HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

to us no sooner. He intended to say something to us, but 
it had gone from him. He had composed a song for the 
occasion, and would sing it. He looked round on us, and 
burst into a song, such as I never heard before or since. 
If ever a song was sung, it was that ane. Oh, man, when 
he came to the last verse, where he says : 

4 A last request permit me here, 
When yearly ye assemble a* : 
One round, I ask it wi a tear, 
To him, the bard, that's far awa,' 

that last sight of him will never leave my mind. He 
arose and. burst into tears. They were na sham anes. 
It was a queer sight to see sae mony men burst out like 
bubbly boys and blubber in spite o' themsels. Soon after 
the song, he said he could stay no longer. Wishing us 
all well, he took his leave, as we thought, forever. We 
sat and looked at each other; full as we were, wi' great 
speeches, nane o' them came to the light that nicht. The 
greatness of Burns was not understood by ony body ; 
but there is a feeling remains, I wad no like to part wi'." 

There were additional reasons for Burns's sadness, in 
the thought that his good father died full of anxiety for 
his future. On his dying bed, as Robert and his sister 
were weeping near him, he gave him a few words of ear- 
nest Christian counsel, and then, after a pause, said " there 
was only one member of his family for whose conduct he 
feared." He repeated the expression, when the young 
poet said, " Oh, father, is it me you mean ? " The old man 
replied, "It was." Robert turned to the window, the 
tears streaming down his cheeks and his bosom swelling 
as if it would burst. 

I have given you these circumstances, as a key' to his 
conduct. His thoughts were* now turned toward Jamaica, 
and he was just about to take his passage, when his poems 



BrEXS. 285 

appeared in print, and produced a perfect furore through 
all Scotland. " Old and young, high and low, grave and 
gay, learned or ignorant, all were alike delighted, agita- 
ted, and transported." 

A kind letter from a gentleman in Edinburgh, who 
had enjoyed his book, and strongly advised a second 
edition, changed all his plans. He spent part of the 
money intended for his journey, for a new suit of clothes ; 
left as much as he could for his dear mother's support, 
and, with an almost empty purse, went at once to Edin- 
burgh, where he was most cordially received. His poems 
were a passport to the finest drawing-rooms, and earls 
and nobles were proud to know him. He was at once the 
lion of the day. It was the fashion to pet and flatter the 
poet-ploughman, and a subscription was soon raised for a 
second edition of his poems ; such men as Blair, Robert- 
son, and Dugald Stewart, carrying lists in their pockets, 
to obtain the names of their acquaintances. He bore the 
ordeal well ; was unaffected and manly ; was ready to 
listen or to talk, and his conversation, brilliant and power- 
ful, was considered by many even more wonderful than 
his poetry. 

Scotland could now boast of a national poet, and was 
glad to do him honor. He seldom blundered or lost his 
self-possession. His heavy boots and buckskin breeches 
were excused or forgotten by the fair ladies, listening 
with delight to his wonderful flow of language, and 
nobles and sages were alike charmed by his untrained 
eloquence. But, alas for him, and the honor of his 
country ! this was but a temporary enthusiasm, and he was 
soon pushed aside. Some were envious of his fame and 
popularity ; others preferred some new pet ; his politics 
were not those of the ruling party ; his habits were known 
to be irregular, and he* was absolutely shunned by those 
who had pursued and caressed him. He had expected this 



286 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

"contemptuous neglect," but it was hard to bear! — all 
his high hopes crushed in two short years, and the fires 
of ambition were now too strongly kindled to be easily 
put out. 

He resolved to unite the farmer and the poet once 
more, and, remarrying his beloved Jean, he leased a 
fine farm and settled quietly at Ellisland, in 1788. The 
land was good, the scenery beautiful, but his home was 
little better than a hovel. Yet love was there, and, for a 
time, Burns was both busy and happy. He longed for 
the cultivated society, however, of which he had enjoyed 
such a brief taste — feeling that he was now at " the very 
elbow of existence," away from all congenial companion- 
ship — his visions of future glory fast disappearing. This 
made him restless and dissatisfied, and he was constantly 
on the move. " In the course* of a single day, he might 
be seen holding the plough, angling in the river, saunter- 
ing with his hands behind his back, on the banks, looking 
at the running water, of which he was very fond ; walk- 
ing round his buildings or over his fields ; and if you lost 
sight of him for an hour, perhaps you might see him re- 
turning from Friar's-Carse, or spurring his horse through 
the Nith, to spend an evening in some distant place, with 
such friends as chance threw in his way." 

During these solitary walks and rapid rides he com- 
posed some of his best songs. " Auld Lang Syne " was 
written about this time. He loved to read these heart- 
gems to his friends as old songs — the labors of forgotten 
bards, or lyrics that he had taken down from some old 
woman's song. 

A few years after, some friend obtained for him the 
office of exciseman for the district in which he lived, with 
a salary of seventy pounds a year, and much hard work — 
a pitiful position for the man whom his country should 
have delighted to honor. 



burns. 287 

But he tried to make the best of his lot, saying: "I 
dare to be honest, and I fear no labor ; nor do I find my 
hurried life greatly inimical to my correspondence with 
the Muses. I meet them now and then as I jog among the 
hills of Mthsdale, just as I used to do on the banks of Ayr." 

He was occasionally remembered in these days by his 
Edinburgh acquaintances in some pleasant way. He had 
a few good friends among them with whom he correspond- 
ed, and many more visitors than he cared for found their 
way to his humble cottage. His farm did not prosper ; 
neither his wife nor himself knew how to manage it with 
thrift and skill. His excise duties took him often away ; 
and the gay companions he found on these frequent ex- 
cursions did him no good. 

In 1791 he relinquished the lease of the Ellisland 
property, and removed his family and their humble furni- 
ture to Dumfries, where they tried in earnest to econo- 
mize, but that was impossible. Friends and admirers 
must be fed and entertained; new books must be pur- 
chased ; even the wandering poor must be cared for : no 
one was ever turned from his door. 

In his family he was ever gentle and affectionate; 
helping his bright boys in their lessons ; listening to Jean's 
sweet voice as she tried his last song ; or writing in their 
midst, cheered rather than disturbed by their presence. 
A third edition of his poems, containing " Tarn O'Shan- 
ter," as a new delight for his admirers, now came out. 
But his end was near. Suspected by the government of 
unpatriotic sentiments, distressed for means, crushed by 
disappointments, injured by constant dissipation, he died 
of a nervous fever, on the 21st of July, 1796 — only thirty- 
seven. 

The question is yet to be answered — asked by some 
one when he heard of his death — " Who do you think will 
be our poet now ? " 
13 



288 HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 

Burns's great mistake in life was his lack of aim and 
principle. He drifted without helm or rudder — tossed 
about by passion and temptation — until dashed upon the 
cruel rocks. 

His short, sad life is a lesson in itself — no moralizing 
could increase its effect. In judging his character and 
conduct, there is a tendency toward extremes. He is 
either condemned too severely, or extolled to the skies. 
Let us pass lightly over his faults, except as they may 
injure those who read his poems, and dwell thankfully, 
lovingly, on the happiness *he has given to the world. 
The depths of one's heart are stirred by the very mention 
of his name. 

As Beecher says, in his own inimitable way : " If every 
man that, within these twenty-four hours the world around, 
should speak the name of Burns with fond admiration, 
were ranked as his subject, no king on earth would have 
such a realm ; and if such a one could change a feeling 
into a flower, and cast it down to his memory, a mountain 
would rise, and he should sit upon a throne of blossoms, 
now at lerigth without a thorn ! " 

Carlyle's wonderful essay on this poet closes with 
these words : 

" With our readers in general, with men of right feel- 
ing anywhere, we are not required to plead for Burns. 
In pitying admiration, he lies enshrined in all our hearts, 
in a far nobler mausoleum than that one of marble ; nei- 
ther will his works, even as they are, pass away from the 
memory of men. While the Shakespeares and Miltons 
roll on like mighty rivers through the country of Thought, 
bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on 
their waves, this little Valclusa Fountain will also arrest 
our eye. For this also is of Nature's own and most cun- 
ning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, 
with a full gushing current, into the light of day ; and 



BURNS. 289 

often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its clear 
waters, and muse among its rocks and pines ! " 

A tourist, who writes very graphically in an Atlantic 
Monthly of 1860, on "Some of the Haunts of Burns," thus 
describes his grave and his early home : 

" There was a footpath through this crowded church- 
yard, sufficiently well worn to guide us to the grave of 
Burns ; but a woman followed behind us, who, it appeared, 
kept the key of the mausoleum, and was privileged to show 
it to strangers. The monument is a sort of Grecian tem- 
ple, with pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about 
twenty feet square. It was formerly open to all the in- 
clemencies of the Scotch atmosphere, but is now protected 
and shut in by large squares of rough glass, each pane 
being of the size of one whole side of the structure. The 
woman unlocked the door, and admitted us into the inte- 
rior. Inlaid into the floor of the mausoleum is the grave- 
stone of Burns — the very same that was laid over his 
grave by Jean Armour, before this monument was built. 
Stuck against the surrounding wall is a marble statue of 
Burns at the plough, with the genius of Caledonia summon- 
ing the ploughman to turn poet. Methought it was not a 
very successful piece of work ; for the plough was better 
sculptured than the man, and the man, though heavy and 
cloddish, was more effective than the goddess. Our. guide 
informed us that an old man of ninety, who knew Burns, 
certifies this statue to be very like the original. 

" The next morning wore a lowering aspect, as if it 
felt itself destined to be one of many consecutive days of 
storm. After a good Scotch breakfast, however, of fresh 
herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and started at a little 
past ten for the banks of the Doon. On our way, at about 
two miles from Ayr, we drew up at a roadside cottage, on 
which was an inscription to the effect that Robert Burns 
was born within those walls. It is now a public-house, 



290 



HOME PICTURES OF ENGLISH POETS. 



and of course we alighted, and entered its little sitting- 
room, which, as we at present see it, is a neat apartment, 
with the modern improvement of a ceiling. The walls are 
much scribbled with the names of visitors, and the wooden 
door of a cupboard in the wainscot, as well as all the other 
wood-work of the room, is cut and carved with initial 
letters. So, likewise, are two tables, which, having re- 
ceived a coat of varnish over the inscriptions, form really 




BURNS AND HIS HIGHLAND MAKT. 



curious and interesting articles of furniture. On a panel, 
let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait of 
Burns, copied from the original picture by Nasmyth. 
The floor of the apartment is of boards, which are probably 
a recent substitute for the ordinary flag-stones of a peas- 
ant's cottage. There is but one room pertaining to the 
genuine birthplace of Robert Burns — it is the kitchen — 



BURNS. 291 

into which we now went. It has a floor of flag-stones, 
even ruder than those of Shakespeare's house, though per- 
haps not so strangely cracked and broken as the latter, 
over which the hoof of Satan himself might seem to have 
trampled. A new window has been opened through the 
wall, toward the road ; but on the opposite side is the little 
original window of only four panes, through which came the 
first daylight that shone upon the Scottish poet. In that 
humble nook, of all places in the world, Providence was 
pleased to deposit the germ of the richest human life 
which mankind then had within its circumference." 

And now, dear reader, we must part, at the door of 
Burns's homely cottage. If you have enjoyed this brief 
excursion in the field of English literature half as much 
as your garrulous cicerone, we may take another ramble 
together some bright day in the future. 



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AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF FRANCE, - 

1 Vol. 12mo. Cloth. 538 pages 



CONTENTS. 

1. Cent.— The Bad Emperors.— II. The Good Emperors.— III. Anar- 
chy and Confusion. — Growth of the Christian Church. — IV. The Removal 
to Constantinople. — Establishment of Christianity. — Apostasy of Julian.— 
Settlement of the Goths. — V. End of the Roman Empire. — Formation of 
Modern States. — Growth of Ecclesiastical Authority. — VI. Belisarius and 
Narses in Italy— Settlement of the Lombards. — Laws of Justinian. — Birth 
of Mohammed. — VII. Power of Home supported by the Monks. — Con- 
quests of the Mohammedans. — VIII. Temporal Power of the Popes. — The 
Empire of Charlemagne. — IX. — Dismemberment of Charlemagne's Em- 
pire. — Danish Invasion of England. — Weakness of France. — Reign of 
Alfred. — X. Darkness and Despair. — XI. The Commencement of Improve- 
ment. — Gregory the Seventh. — First Crusade. — XII. Elevation of Learn- 
ing. — Power of the Church. — Thomas a Becket. — XIII. First Crusade 
against Heretics. — The Albigenses. — Magna Charta. — Edward I. — XIV. 
Abolition of the Order of Templars. — Rise of Modern Literature, — Schism 
of the Church. — XV. Decline of Feudalism. — Agincourt. — Joan of Arc. — 
The Printing Press. — Discovery of America.— XVI. The Reformation. — 
The Jesuits. — Policy of Elizabeth. — XVII. English Rebellion and Revolu- 
tion. — Despotism of Louis the Fourteenth. — XVIII. India. — America. — 
France. — Index. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

Mr. White possesses in a high degree the power of epitomizing — that 
faculty which enables him to distil the essence from a mass of facts, and to 
condense it in description ; a battle, siege, or other remarkable event, 
which, without his skill, might occupy a chapter, is compressed within 
the compass of a page or two, and this without the sacrifice of any feature 
essential or significant. — Century. 

Mr. White has been very happy in touching upon the salient points m 
the history of each century in the Christian era, and yet has avoided mak- 
ing his work a mere bald analysis or chronological table. — Prov. Journal. 

In no single volume of English literature can so satisfying and clear an 
Idea of the historical character of these eighteen centuries be obtained. — • 
Home Journal. 

In this volume we have the best epitome of Christian History ex- 
VAnt. This is high praise, but at the same time just. The author's pecu- 
liar success is in making the great points and facts of history stand out is 
sharp relief. His style may be said to be stereoscopic, and the effect i» ox- 
aaaUingly impressive. — Providence Preso. 



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